I agree, its still very early and I hear similar things from some senior mgmt folks at large firms that I worked with over the years. That said, this round of technology innovation (what we call 2.0) has the ability to show results, good or bad much much faster. So it should be easier for SIs to make a judgment call on ability of specific programs (tech+services+switching costs + risk mitigation) to bring significant value for their customers.

In the last round of innovation, the inflection point came when these conversations moved from just IT to include business unit heads and CXOs.E-services and traditional SI's played a big part in making that transition happen. I used to work in the strategy consulting group at one of the eServices firms (USWeb/CKS, marchFIRST) and we saw this play out. Big customers moved in fast once the CXO or business unit head saw the threat and opportunity clearly.

One last thing: The big SIs and consulting firms such as Accenture, Deloitte and BAH don't get due credit for driving the shift and are often wrongly considered laggards. I'm hopeful that this time they participate in the discussion we're all having.

I agree the SIs need to get smart about this. Accenture, Booz Allen, Cap Gemini, and now Deloitte (carefully listed in alpha order) are building practices here. This phenomenon is not dissimilar to what happened during the dotcom run up when e-Services (Scient, Viant, then, Razorfish) firms got really smart about moving big customers onto the web.

The trouble is, it's still REALLY early. Listening to SAP's customer call today, hard reality smacked me once again when I realize so much of what we, in the echo chamber, take for granted is completely foreign and viewed as somewhat silly among those who run serious businesses. I think we will begin to see firms crop up to meet this challenge who are 2.0 savvy. It's a whole raft of expertise that's required, however. The easiest part is the technology.