I am currently looking into the possibility of using a hosted email environment and dropping my in-house exchange setup. My tech-consulting company has used an internal Exchange server for mail since we started. At that time it was a business advantage to maintain your own Exchange server. With the introduction of infrastructure and software as a service the advantage for smaller companies and companies with a small IT staff seems to have disappeared. Today, email should just be available, a utility like electricity.
In my pursuit I started thinking more about the engagements I am seeing and the fundamental shift in the past few years. In the past i would walk into a small company where things were more or less set up and chugging along under the stewardship of the full time tech staff and lend a helping hand one way or another... today I find myself dealing less with in-house tech staff and more with situations where I deal directly with non technical people who run projects (poorly most of the time and make my life hell). The critical thing I find myself thinking of is this shift from small companies retaining a small technical staff to the present situation where companies utilize the SAAS model and outsourcing custom development and integration and forgoing full time tech staff.
Has anyone else noticed this trend? I would love to see what others think of the matter and hear their reasoning. Thoughts?
(I contribute my efforts to the north east and focus most on NY/ NJ areas. this is where my observations come from.)