The other day I was reading Paul Graham's latest comments on the increasing irrelevancy of Microsoft under the provocative title of 'Microsoft is Dead' and today an announcement about Microsoft pumping enormous amounts of cash and energy - literally and figuratively - into new data centres. A bit early to be sounding its death ...

The bubble is back - it was on the BBC site so must be true ;) - and the 'race to the bottom' has well and truly begun...again. Everywhere I look, it is *free* this and *free* that - I don't think I really need to buy any software, or software service, ever again. How are these companies ever going to make a profit? Ooops forgot ...

Borrowed with attribution from www.broadbandevolved.com and http://www.broadbandevolved.com/Home/tabid/117/EntryID/37/Default.aspx. Gartner Group reports that the global SaaS market reached $6.3 Billion last year and may hit $19.3 Billion by 2011.  Those are big numbers.  HUGE numbers.  The type of numbers that attract the biggest ...