2006 predictions revisited

I’ve already lobbed my two penn’orth into the predictions mix but this one from the Mercury News caught my eye:

"The office moves to the Web Documents, e-mail and spreadsheets move off your desktop computer to the Web.

A host of Companies big and small are building new ways to transfer the computer desktop experience onto the Web, and we expect that trend to accelerate in 2006."

Not everyone agrees but as they’re at the centre of current investment, who am I to differ? Meanwhile, the luddites boys at AccountingWEB think I’m at risk of becoming intoxicated by the smoke that gets blown out of Silicon Valley’s backside. Believe me when I say I can detect the smell of BS, even from this distance. So far, most of the offerings have been decidedly underwhelming but I do see that changing over time. Quite how this will all come together given the anticipated launch of Office 12 is far from clear and the dissent that exists in the Microsoft camp as to which direction to take.

Vinnie Marchandani weighs in with his predictions around services and outsourcing. One I missed in the run-up to Christmas but which could stall offshoring decisions is:

"SaaS models will come under increased scrutiny from buyers about stringent SLAs and business continuity plans. In 2001, after the India/Pakistan nuclear war threat, Indian vendors  went through a similar spike in scrutiny. After last week’s well publicized outage at salesforce.com , this will become a required due diligence step in evaluating SaaS options. The scrutiny helped Indian vendors mature - it will similarly increase corporate confidence in SaaS."

Vinnie’s right on this and I’d certainly recommend keeping a close eye on the growth of companies like Twinfield and WinWeb to see how they cope under the strain of what I already believe will be a year of spectacular growth.