Is this the future?
When I wrote Thinking of...Selling Microsoft Online Services? Ask the Smart Questions, I had to confront the future. My working life, 30 years, has been spent working in the IT industry and I have seen every evolution of computing from mainframes. I'm not sure how you describe in one or two words the evolving world of IT today, but some liken it becoming a utility. This is certain to have profound implications for the IT industry and SaaS/Cloud Computing is centerpiece to the delivery of IT as a utility.
When I think about the Microsoft community its employees, customers and partners span the world and are all influential in what will happen next. This is a mighty powerful community in number to talk to and spread the word - of change - to consider a future that over time will result in many changes to how we think about technology and put it to work in our personal lives and in business.
Another person who is very influential in thinking about change is the author Nicholas Carr who wrote The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google. You might be interested to read an interview with Nicholas where he talks about the shake up facing the IT industry.
Click here to go to the interview which takes about 5 minutes to read.