The past week’s SIIA On-Demand Conference served as another opportunity for the rapidly evolving Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) industry to take stock of where it stands and where it is headed.

One indication of the rapid maturation of the SaaS movement was the lack of discussion or debate about how to define what SaaS stands for. In fact, Brian Jacobs of Emergence Capital–an active investor and proponent of SaaS companies–skipped a slide in his presentation during the first morning of the two-day conference which included a definition of SaaS.

Just as the debate of definitions has pasted, so too has any dispute over whether the SaaS market is for real. The major systems vendors–IBM and HP–lent their perspectives about the forces shaping the SaaS business. The general manager of Microsoft’s .NET platform strategy, Cliff Reeves, outlined how his company is responding to escalating demands for SaaS solutions.

And refreshingly, the conference attendees were spared the usual assortment of industry analyst forecasts projecting exponential growth rates. Instead, we heard from Jason Maynard of Credit Suisse why Wall Street is beginning to get onboard the SaaS bandwagon…to capitalize on the greater profitability and predictability of the SaaS annuity model. We also heard from boardroom powerhouses Accenture and McKinsey who are targeting both the enterprise customer demand and software vendor supply side consulting opportunities. On one of two panels I moderated during the conference, McKinsey’s Abhijit Dubey reported a new survey by his firm recently found that the proportion of CIOs considering SaaS applications has jumped from 38% a year ago to 61% today.

Although some of the keynote sessions were light on substance, a wide array of SaaS specialists and established independent software vendors (ISVs) spoke in keynote panels and breakout sessions about the practical realities and key challenges facing the SaaS sector.

I was pleased to chair a panel on the “Future of On-Demand” which included industry veteran Ken Rudin of LucidERA, TripleTree investment banker Chris Hoffman, long-time ZDnet journalist/cynic Mike Vizard and Dubey of McKinsey that generated a few sparks over the optimal go-to-market and exit strategies for SaaS providers. This discussion carried over to a CEO panel I moderated on the second day of the conference which included John Dillon of Navis, Michael Gregoire of Taleo, Mark Hoffman of Everdream, Subrah Iyar of Webex, and Treb Ryan of OpSource. The relatively tame session turned more entertaining when Treb Ryan proclaimed that the “channel is dead in the SaaS world” only to be immediately debunked by Mark Hoffman and Subrah Iyar whose companies rely heavily on channel partners.

With the exception of a lofty presentation by IBM on the global forces shaping the SaaS market and a light-weight talk by Sabrina Horn of the Horn Group regarding the basic principles and best practices for SaaS PR (in case you didn’t know, “don’t be dishonest”), the SIIA event was packed with practical advice and perspective right through the final sessions about retaining/growing customers and pricing model alternatives.

The composition of the attendees also offered an additional insight about the expanding reach of the SaaS market. They included representatives from big companies as diverse as networking behemoth Cisco Systems and offshore business process outsourcer (BPO) Infosys mingling with a wide array of aspiring SaaS players.

They all gained a clear sense of where the SaaS market stands today and the many paths available for future growth. Most importantly, they learned that the SaaS movement is quickly mirroring the overall software industry. As a result, there is no one model for success. Instead, success will be determined by effectively satisfying specific customer requirements and expectations with a scalable service delivery mechanism and corporate sales/marketing engine.

The SIIA will be posting a video archive of the event soon. Keep an eye on their website at www.siia.net.