My Dell mini9 arrived.  The mini9 is Dell’s entry into the netbook market. I have been quite skeptical of the cloud and the value of a netbook, but I’m at the airport on free WIFI and I’ve been accessing everything I need from my web browser. Webmail, my companies CRM, Facebook, Twitter…all from a 2lb, $400 laptop.

I feel the mini9, except for a few keyboard oddities and a slightly dim screen, was a great purchase. If I’m not on the Internet, computers have little value to me. Everything I do requires that I am connected. I may not match the needs of every user so YMMV.

Which brings me back to the cloud. I was at the ConnectWise conference last week where several panels discussed the threat the cloud poses to traditional IT consultants (the cloud supplants internal IT services, thereby lessening the need for IT service providers). I’ve been thinking about the cloud threat and how to move forward in a way that benefits my clients and my business.

I believe a lot of consultants will fail as their bread and butter is moved offsite to cloud services provided by Google, Microsoft and others. To remain viable, consultants will have to focus on providing their own cloud services or focus less on managing technology and more on integrating existing cloud services into business processes.

We are still a few years away from mass cloud adoption, but as I type this out on my 2lb notebook on free WIFI, I am reminded the future always gets here…eventually.