Love them or loathe them, analyst firms and their unique individuals stoke the emotions of many who come in regular contact with them. But are thee days of the traditional industry analyst numbered?

Unless HP is plotting a radical move to buy SAP, or some other ERP business, HP seems to be letting itself down badly - the firm needs new thinkers who can drive innovation and a new direction into the business, because right now, most industry observers are left scratching their heads trying to figure out what the game-plan is.

Private Clouds are a cynical oxymoron. The whole point of a Cloud is that you share resources and don’t have to own the capacity you need, because its available on demand, so you can pay by the drink. Well, if you own the resources and the capacity, it is inherently limited to what you own, and you’ve already paid for everyone’s drinks at the bar whether they consume them or not!

"Cloud BPO" is, simply put, a load of nonsense. The core fulcrum processes of BPO are the toughest to move into the Cloud, and only the small-to-medium business sector is going to enjoy any modicum of success of moving genuine "BPO" processes, such as finance and HR, into the Cloud in the near-term.

As a result of TPI's recent Q3 outlook, several industry colleagues expressed concern that TPI wasn't reflecting market reality, with particular reference to their claim that the BPO industry had taken a 15% nose-dive in 2010. New HfS Research data that encompasses all current Finance & Accounting (F&A) BPO engagements, reveals two key factors that cause us to question the reliability of the latest TPI Index's BPO outlook.

nd here we are, like clockwork, jumping on the tackiest, lamest marketing exercise every analyst, consultant, CEO, and wannabe thought-leader always persists in doing... because you are supposed to gasp "Wow - they are predicting the future!"

This morning I nearly choked on my cornflakes to the incredible revelation in CIO.com from analyst firm, Gartner Group, that outsourcing doesn't save money.

Too many technical folks fail to view the bigger picture when it comes to Cloud. At a tactical level, when you look at solely hardware capacity solutions, it's hard to see beyond how it can impact businesses beyond creaking ITO-only deals. However, you really need to look at the convergence of BPO, SaaS and Cloud in a broader outsourcing context to start to visialize how these three pillars of business delivery can - and are - coming together in a blended outsourcing model.