Delivered Innovation founder and CTO Michael Topalovich has been confirmed as a panelist for the “Honeymoon and Divorce: Changing SaaS Providers” session at the Interop Las Vegas 2009 SaaS Conference.  The session will take place on Tuesday, May 19 from 4:00 – 5:00PM.

The session will be moderated by Jerry Smith, CTO of Symphony Services.  Other panelists include R “Ray” Wang of Forrester Research, and Rick Nucci, CTO of Boomi.

Switching software is hard enough to do when you run it in-house. But when you’re moving from one SaaS provider to another, you face new challenges. You may not own your data; you may miss features you didn’t know you were using; and custom code build for one SaaS platform may need rewriting on another. This panel of end-users who’ve made the jump shares lessons learned from SaaS migration.

To receive a 40% discount on conference passes or to sign up for a free expo pass for Interop Las Vegas 2009, register at: http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/?priorityCode=CMXSNL13

Stacey Higginbotham: As Clouds Reach the Enterprise, Opportunities Are Clear

Another good post from Stacey that provides some interesting angles on cloud computing adoption in the enterprise.  Items of note:

• The concept of adopting “private” clouds prior to migrating to the “public” clouds, and somehow integrating the public / private paradigm
• Early cloud computing adopters in the enterprise space are predominantly focusing on software testing and high performance computing, but most of the market remains skeptical
• The adoption of multiple “clouds” to avoid vendor lock-in
• The legal implications of where data is physically stored – the tendency to focus on data security / integration tends to overshadow this important consideration

Developing cloud apps: What’s different

Very interesting piece on the implications of developing applications in “The Cloud.”  Good insight from Model Metrics CTO John Barnes on the dynamic nature of being a SaaS / cloud computing developer in an era of constantly moving targets.

Jonathan Sapir: Situational Application Platforms Threaten Smug Programmers

Jonathan takes a somewhat provocative approach to pointing out that cloud computing and situational applications are rendering “traditional” programmers obsolete at an increasing rate.  Derrick Harris at GigaOm lays out a similar scenario for those on the IT infrastructure side of the house as cloud computing pervades mainstream Corporate America.  Both of these posts remind me of something that I had written early last year, “Platform as a Service and the Implications for IT,”  just prior to transforming our business to focus on SaaS design and strategy.

There are compelling arguments on both sides that innovative technologies either create jobs or eliminate them, but I don’t think the discussion is that cut and dried.  What’s inevitable is that cloud computing will certainly change jobs, and I think the bigger point here is that if you are an IT professional, if you have not learned by now that you have to continuously stay on top of new technology and business innovations to maintain your place in the pecking order, you will inevitably be left behind.  Sure you can sit back and hope that Black Swan events such as Y2K will come out of nowhere and suddenly make your 20-year-old programming skills a hot commodity, but the more prudent approach is to evolve with the times and stay relevant.  Cloud computing is here, so those hoping it would just go away are in for a rude awakening.

salesforce.com: What is Cloud Computing?

Excellent cloud computing primer for executives.  Explains the concept, the technology, and the business value of cloud computing in a concise three-minute video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae_DKNwK_ms]

Nicholas Carr: The coming of the megacomputer

Yet another series of factoids from Mr. Carr that demonstrates the enormity of the shift towards cloud computing.  Some highlights:

1. “What we’re seeing is the first stage of a rapid centralization of data-processing power – on a scale unimaginable before.”
2. “The consolidation of server sales into the hands of just a few companies also portends a radical reshaping of the server industry…”
3. “…the cloud giants are gobbling up more than a million and a half servers annually.”