bottom line is that in a few years everything will be virtualized and
cosolodation will rule the land. there will be single turnkey solutions
for the end user / corporate environment that will be infinitely
configurable to meet the latest trends and needs. there will be no use
for the small time 'innovator' or 'player' except in a purely academic
environment.
If I had a nickel for every time someone told me everything would be:
* Consolidated
* Virtualized
* Automated
* Etc., etc.
I would have enough to buy an ISP. 
Add to that every time someone told me the "small guys" would get pushed out, or that "bells will own everything", or that "<insert favorite analyst catch-phrase>" and it gets really old really fast.
The market / industry / whatever will do things you will not expect. Learn to deal with it.
history has taught us otherwise.
aaron.glenn
"For every day a company does the same thing they did yesterday, they will be in business one day fewer"
... or something like that,
- bri
Matt Bazan wrote:
While I'm not claiming this is the beginning of a trend, last
week a former dialup customer who left ShaysNet for Comcast several
months ago returned to our dialups AND brought along a friend who had
never been one of our customers before but who was fed up with Comcast.
Both said that Comcast was too expensive (neither are 'power
users'), the rates go up too quickly (twice the inflation rate?), and
Comcast had greater technical problems than we do. It probably helped
that I allowed former customers who had switched to Comcast to use our
DNS when Comcast's was unreachable. Oh, by the way, did I mention that
no one seems to like Comcast's technical support - I was getting calls
from former customers who were on Comcast when their network was down.
David Leonard
ShaysNet
Wow, I hope not Matt. That is a VERY Bleak outlook.
Mark D. Bodley
President
Cyrix Systems
m@cyrixsys.com
www.cyrixsys.com
Bazan
Grandma Tilly wants to put a web page up with pics of the grandkids so
Uncle Charlie (who's stuck guarding a sand dune outside Baghdad at the moment)
can keep in touch.
Google has to catch so many hits/second that they have a dozen hosting farms
with multiple tens of thousands of servers at each farm.
Yeah. One single infinitely configurable web hosting solution is going to work
for both of them, and they will both be able to configure it without assistance.
(You don't like that example, pick any two other diametrically opposed customer
bases).
And "virtualized"? ASP (Application Service Providers) were going to Change
The Computing Environment. Googling for "application service provider" gets 2.3
*million* hits. Their *actual* impact? You tell me.
bottom line is that in a few years everything will be virtualized and
cosolodation will rule the land.
I've heard this over and over again, and it's just not happened. I'm still one of the few 100% facilities based dial ISPs left in Iowa, and if I have to be reduced to being a reseller to survive, I'll just close shop. But I don't see that happening. Sure, dial up will eventually be a niche service, and that's fine, as most of my revenue will be from other sources by the time that happens. If I ever have to become a dial up reseller, it will be because my core business has moved in another direction.
there will be single turnkey solutions
for the end user / corporate environment that will be infinitely
configurable to meet the latest trends and needs.
Are you in a marketing department of some BigCo? "Let's produce a single product that 100% of all customers can use, and that can change depending on the latest fad of the day, and we'll rule the marketplace!" If it were possible, wouldn't someone have already done that? It sounds like something that would make for a good Dilbert comic strip.
there will be no use
for the small time 'innovator' or 'player' except in a purely academic
environment.
You must be new to this game. 
In Capitolism, there is always an innovator. They drive technology forward, and then the mainstream follows. You're under the false assumption that there will reach a point where there is nothing to innovate in the areas of last mile IP net access, and consolidation will make a single, regulated monopolistic provider.
I think we know that scenario won't be allowed to happen. By the federal government regulators (I suppose that depends on the FCC), by state regulators, or competition/capitalism in general.
BigCableCo, and BigTelco can fight over customers all they want, I'll be happy with the table scraps. And since "single miracle product that can be everything for everyone, and perfectly meets everyone's needs" doesn't exist, and won't ever exist, there will be plenty of scraps to be had.
-Jerry
And "virtualized"? ASP (Application Service Providers) were going to
Change
The Computing Environment. Googling for "application service
provider" gets 2.3
*million* hits. Their *actual* impact? You tell me.
Their impact can't be measured because it spread out into niche
markets. Like blogs and wikis and all those photo sites.
And my company's network with 1,000 customers and PoPs in
20 countries all doing 100% ASP traffic. ASPs businesses are
thriving. However, the crystal ball gazers who hyped them
back in the late 90's just got it all wrong because they
thought ASPs would displace MS-Office desktops and SAP
installations.
The fundamentals of the ASP industry is that there are
companies providing their customers mission critical
services over a shared IP network, whether it is the
public Internet or a single operator network like ours.
It's big business and if you dig into what your customers
are actually doing with their Internet connections, you
will find it there.
--Michael Dillon
Exactly what *I* predicted - there's going to be *plenty* of room for
small flexible operators in niche markets, at both ends of the pipe.
In fact, there's almost certainly money to be made by leveraging the fact that
Comcast wants to do 4M/384K/$25 - the number of companies making money from
finding innovative ways to sell you electricity is *far* outweighed by the
number of companies finding new ways to make money based on the fact that
somebody *else* is selling you electricity.
The only people who need to worry are the ones whos business model is "We made
money selling 'just pipes' in that market 5 years ago, and we're doing it now,
so it will still be OK 5-10 years from now". 98% of *those* companies are in
for a rude awakening. 