Garnter, Forrester Research, IDC and more are outlining the top trends in IT challenges in today's business landscape. These include IT wanting the latest versions or technology in their business applications but don't want to spend the money or tie up the resource time. Also wishing they could free up IT to focus more on strategy versus maintenance. IT is looking for predictable costs to report to management and executives. And, they also want to provide more capabilities to the user community, however don't have the time to spend implementing and training. Core issues facing IT professionals today. Most companies are more hesitant than ever when considering a major IT spend. I was recently at a Microsoft partner briefing event in the North Central area and was so glad to hear these trends, this is exactly what our hosting services speak to in today's down economy. Research statistics presented included a study by IDC that by 2001 the hosting or 'cloud' computing industry will be a $20 billion industry...and predictions of 32% market growth from years 2007-2011.....Beautiful!!!

Convergence 2009 brought many great messages this year, one of particular 'picking up speed' interest in today's business world "SaaS" and "S+S". The keynote opener touched on the importance of technology evolution and how more and more businesses will be moving to a cloud model in the next few years. The other keynote focused on 'exploring' and illustrated how their R&D areas are constantly evolving, gathering and changing. Both of these topics - constant technology evolution and exploration tie perfectly into what Businesses need to focus on today. Especially in our economy. Being forward moving, evolving and thinking is going to be key for businesses now and in the future. I had the chance to network with business owners at all levels; software users, ISV's, Developers, and VAR partners and the interest in hosting services and offering subscription based offerings is very prevalent.
The conference also outlined excellent new technologies including surface, Microsoft Tag, World telescope (Microsoft) and more. The world is changing by the minute it seems ... hosting services are going to quickly become an 'adoptive' way of doing business!