I am delighted to say I have now completed my 5 years cancer free period and have now been given the all clear, pretty good really. First of all I am astonished at just how quickly these 5 years have come and gone and as before I can’t thank the staff at The Western General Hospital in Edinburgh enough, they really do save lives.

Now the world of technology is starting to go ballistic, terms like Consolidation, Mergers, Acquisitions, Unified Communications, Software as a Service (SAAS), Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Virtualisation are all starting to stir up excitement again after the relatively recent world banking crisis shocked everyone and brought the business machine to a standstill.

My god Microsoft have paid circa $8.5 BILLION for Skype a business who have created a name and brand in the niche online world of Voice and Video Communications (primarily domestic) and have been at a loss in figuring out how to create commercial profits from same. I use Skype and love it.

Indeed some analysts believe the Skype deal, Microsoft's largest ever, could become a multibillion-dollar dud, as it once was for EBay Inc. The online auction site acquired Skype for $3.1 billion in 2005 but then sold most of its stake in the phone service after failing to wring a profit from it."The question is, what's the point here?" said James E. Schrager, a professor of entrepreneurship at the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business. "They seem to be buying an interesting company to which Microsoft doesn't really add anything."

Are we at the start of a new Dot Com Boom and Bust where ridiculous valuations are placed on future performance of new wave type businesses? Or is it simpler than that in Microsoft’s case, they know the old world desk top domination is coming to an end and they desperately need to get involved on the online web at any cost and quickly? Time will tell and we won’t need to wait 5 years to find out.

So what’s happening in Commsworld’s small world up here in dark and damp Scotland? Well quite a lot actually. We notice the changes happening in business communications, the phenomenal growth in Mobile Smart Phones and the important and indeed critical part they now play in the corporate world. Mobility and always on-line communications are becoming a must for most businesses, the availability of Wireless Networks is astonishing (and mainly free) and the new wave high bandwidth Ethernet Services look like being a game changing manoeuvre. Then there is the growth of Virtualisation with for example VM Ware making big noises.

There is no doubt to me that clients require, now more than ever, trusted and experienced suppliers with which to partner and help deliver excellence to their own businesses in order to guarantee their own growth in the years ahead. It is now critical to ensure the myriad of solutions available are carefully analysed and managed by a Service Centric Experienced Organisation. Commsworld put Service at the heart of our business strategy; it is quite simply the most important area of our business and has to be our differentiator in the market. As I have said before and I make no apologies for repeating, ‘’you can buy things from anybody or via any route in today’s online world however service is not a commodity purchase’’.

So now that I no longer have to make visits periodically to the hospital I can get on with building a Company that not only supplies things when our clients require them, but genuinely partners with them to allow their own businesses to prosper in the years ahead. Pretty good really.

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