Cloud-based services present major challenges – and opportunities – for Apple’s iTune and Microsoft’s Office client platforms. If you could find all your songs at an Internet Radio site accessed via a 4G/WiFi connection, then do you really need to store all the songs on your iPod? Similarly, if all of your word processing and spreadsheets were available from a cloud provider (this also simplifies collaboration) then do you really need to install Office 2010 on your client.? I will be watching Microsoft and Apple closely, wondering which tech giant will be most aggressive in cannibalizing its current cash cow, to ensure long-term viability. This is the classic “innovator’s dilemma”. Remember DEC in the late 1980′s, stubbornly and in 20-20 hindsight incorrectly, protecting its existing mini-computer franchise and refusing to embrace the PC world?? Interesting parallel.
