The announcement of Google to offer Google Premier Apps, a suite of on-demand Google services such as its calendar, email, IM, VOIP, docs and spreadsheets bundled for $50/year. A free version targeted at educational institutions — Google Apps Education Edition — offers the same features as the premier edition except for the storage size. There is also the free Google Apps Standard Edition with less features.

This is not only starting to seriously compete with Microsoft but has the potential to tip the way we all operate. Salesforce.com's success and growing adoption by the nonprofit market is already showing that the on-demand nonprofit working in a hosted environment for critical business functions is here to stay. This true especially for office productivity, communications, and other core functions, such as CRM.