IBM is collaborating with universities around the world to develop innovative technologies and business models. The Academic Initiative provides students with direct access to cutting edge tools and business insight in an effort to prepare them for jobs in the growing and rapidly changing IT industry.

There is a very high growth of new companies, which are backed by venture capitalists [and] are starting out as software-as-a-service companies. Also, there are vendors like SAP that offered a traditional license that are moving to hosted offerings.