The time for SaaS or software as a service has arrived. While the role out will take many years, I can't wait. In countries like Australia, availability of good high speed  Internet connections is still a major problem, and it will be a critical consideration for businesses both small and large. This week a Gartner report predicted the An "explosive growth" in the software as a service (SaaS) CRM market will play a large factor in global revenues increasing by about $1bn every year from 2007 to 2011.

At the same time the market for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is seeing a huge increase and business is committed to SOA as the future of process and application design, according to a new survey by IBM. Having just spent a day filling in travel forms to attend a conference the need for SOA was clear to me. I filled in a proposal for funding. Then (when approved) a permission to travel request. Then (when approved) a leave application form, cash advance form, travel dairy, and on and on it goes. The same information must be submitted 20 times or more. I hope that SOA means that one day we will fill in information once.