Since I wrote this post, Phil Wainewright on ZDnet further drove this point home with his article on Appirio and how cloud computing services are going to add new pressures on SIs. (http://bit.ly/voHPA)

That said, we've seen this movie play out before, in the aftermath of the dot com boom where the larger SI's adapted and thrived. This time however, cloud computing and Enterprise 2.0 / social software will require a fundamental re-thinking of how services are delivered around software. Good to see service providers such as Appirio stirring the pot very effectively.

I couldn't agree with you more when you said:

“If the last round of technology innovation required services providers to have domain expertise, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

There is more wisdom pack in this seemingly innocuous statement than folks might realize. It impacts nearly every aspect of delivering Business Technology solutions to the enterprise.