It's that predictable time of year

I still continue to be surprised at the number of people I talk to in the IT and software world who haven't properly woken up to the new wave of Software as a Service and Open Source, and the effects they are producing.  IDC's predictions for 2006 have them at the heart of things:

"A critical new ingredient we'll see in 2006 is the acceleration of disruptive business models – 'open innovation' in IT product and service development (the open source effect) and online delivery of IT as a service (the Google effect). These disruptive shifts will force most vendors to perform a strategic gut check as they enter the year," said Frank Gens, senior vice president of Research.

I see they feature in Dennis Howlett's accounting world view of the coming year.  And the SaaS and Utility computing topics are being mentioned pretty regularly in a variety of media spots - see the following random selection:

Managing Automation

IT Jungle

VNUnet

Tekrati

The "stone age" software types better wake up in the new year.

Technorati Tags : SaaS, utility, 2006, predictions, IDC

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