In 10 Predictions for the Future of SaaS and On-Demand Software Applications, Demian Entrekin founder of Innotas identified 10 key trends that SaaS companies should think about as they work toward driving growth and adoption of on-demand applications in the marketplace.

Here’s my list of 5 key trends (from Demian’s list of 10) that I believe will have the greatest impact on companies looking to purchase On-Demand solutions:

1. Software without borders: Applications are becoming less and less restricted to a particular organization and more oriented around user networks. This has the effect of making the applications more user-centric rather than organization-centric. Paradoxically, this is good for the organization since it will lead to better adoption.

2. Tier 1 support reigns: Now that there is less and less room for fancy, high priced consultants to answer the fancy, high priced questions, Tier 1 support will take on a bigger and bigger responsibility to represent the company and answer tough questions during the sales cycle. Will a good FAQ cut it? We doubt it.

3. More product alliances: SaaS vendors will dedicate more resources to integration partnerships with other SaaS vendors. Right now, they talk about it but they don’t do it very well. Alliances may be the key toward gaining some share of the elusive “channel” for SaaS vendors.

4. Video trumps text: SaaS products will begin to use more and more video for training, support, documentation, etc. It’s cheap and easy and more interesting to look at. Text based tools are being replaced by A/V.

5. Tech takes a back seat: There are fewer and fewer technical hurdles to get a SaaS application to market than when we started this in 1999. Now the emphasis is shifting more to marketing strategy; the technology, while obviously essential, is taking more of a back seat.

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