I was reading a white paper today that was produced by a colleague about Software as a Service (SaaS) and realised that sometimes, even those pushing the whole SaaS idea don’t really understand what it is really all about.

This of course leads to confusion and in some cases fear which in turn stops people taking these services up en mass.

So the article I was reading spent a lot of time telling us how providing software as a service was all about thin client technology and VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) but I actually believe that if you are trying to embrace the “cloud” way of working, this is actually the last thing you want to do.

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The world is changing. Money is tight, companies are finding it hard to turn a profit and people are loosing their jobs all over the place.

So for those companies (and this also applies to those who work for themselves), cutbacks have to be made and in light of recent huge rises in fuel prices (although things are getting better on that front), one area where big savings can be made is on travel.

Indeed the company I work for is taking this very approach and for me this works out just fine. Whilst I am sure there are colleagues who enjoy flying and staying in 3 star hotels, I have been there and done that and you know what? It doesn’t do it for me like it used to. I suppose it helps that I am a home based worker so a cut back on travel sees me spending more time at home with my family. So one side effect of all of these cut backs is that my work/life balance is better.

On top of all of this, less travel means less emissions and is better for the environment. Bonus!

So whilst we are all trying to travel less we still have a job to do and we still need to interact with people in different locations so we are seeing a big push on the technology front for a number of tools including online collaboration platforms and video conferencing. Indeed the latter is seen as the technology that will save the day but to be fair, I am not convinced.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think video conferencing is great. Within my organisation, we have some serious video conferencing kit with full video immersion kit in some locations, traditional HD video conferencing suites in other locations and even video to the desktop for some users. I also use video at home to speak to friends around the globe via tools such as Messenger etc and as a technology, it works very well indeed.

But the question I have is are we just over complicating the solution to the problem? Having watched people using all of these technologies I have to wonder if we are just using technology for technologies sake whilst the sales people are happy to keep on selling us more. Let me explain.

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In my living room I have a nice 50” high definition (HD) plasma screen linked up to a Sky+ HD box.

I can tell you now, you have not experienced the true force of The Antiques Road Show until you have seen it on the BBC HD channel.

But over the last couple of years, whilst the likes of Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Sky and so on have been working hard to persuade us that HD is the future and that we should ditch our old analogue TVs, a minor revolution has taken place.

Low definition broadcasting is the future and more importantly, it is here today.

Don’t believe me? Read on:

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