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The article presents information on several information technology (IT) shops that are testing new ways to use the latest technologies to increase revenue, and improve customer service. The Community College of Rhode Island in Warwick is working on VM-ware's View and Liquidware Labs' ProfileUnity software to bring virtualized applications for 18,000 students at the university. The American College of Physicians (ACP) is testing a mobile version of its medical knowledge self-assessment program.

The article offers definitions distinguishing live and online services. It states that live services are designed for home users, business end users and virtual work groups. Meanwhile, online services are aimed at organizations with higher-level information technology (IT) needs, like scalability and security. The prior includes software pieces of Windows and Office, as well as the hosted version of Dynamics CRM, while the latter includes the hosted software versions of Exchange, SharePoint and the Office Communications Server 2007.

The article reports on the software as a service (SaaS) technology platform of Microsoft Corp. The firm has joined the SaaS arena through its Live services which focuses on home users, as well as small and medium-sized businesses. Microsoft directly reaches enterprise users with its Online family of hosted services. Customers buying licenses for 5,000 seats gets the software vendor's SaaS versions of Exchange, SharePoint and Office Communications Server 2007. Moreover, Microsoft offers rebates ranging from 25 to 100 percent of the service subscription fees if service-level agreements are not met.

This article shares the author's thoughts on the adoption of customer relationship management or personalization application by InterContinental Hotels Group PLC in the U.S. The author relates the personalization technology underpinning Priority Club, the online service for frequent guests of InterContinental Hotels Group's hotels worldwide. In effect, InterContinental Hotels Group had to create a personalized profile for a user who never traveled. The new account had to be flexible enough to suit the preferences of individual customers for how they want their assistants to access and use their private accounts.

Identifies several negative attitudes of people in the information technology (IT) industry. Claim of IT vendors that they sell solutions; Misuse by companies of IT to erect barriers between customer service staffers and clients; Concept of real-time computing; Software vendors who assume no liability for their products; Vendors who would rather sue than innovate.