I am a web Bedouin -- not the desert dwelling nomadic tribe -- but the new term for an online worker without a fixed office. At various times during the work day (which can be almost any time), I might be found in the local coffee shop, the city park, the library, or my screened-in porch.

The working world is becoming quite a friendly place for us Bedouins. With Wi-Fi, cellular technology, instant messaging and internet-based project management, I am as much in my office while at the pool as at home.

Two new services are making the Bedouin's work life even easier. One, GrandCentral, I wrote about earlier, before it was bought by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). GrandCentral gives me one phone number to distribute to my working contacts. I can route a call placed to this number to any other phone of my choosing, as well as record any conversation on it.

Microsoft seems to latch onto trends after they have become huge – such as the Apple's iPod, game consoles, and so on.

Well, the latest is web services. Basically, this is using the Internet to deliver software-type services such as a spreadsheets, word processors, accounting systems, and so on. Of course, this is something that companies like Salesforce.com and NetSuite have done for years. And, more importantly, they are getting lots of traction in the marketplace.

So in light of this, it makes sense that Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, is claiming that he will make a "big bold bet" on web services. Actually, he thinks this is truly the next-big thing for at least a decade.

But if you look at things a little deeper, his vision is not so clear-cut. That is, somehow, he wants to have a world where his bloated products – such as Office – somehow live harmoniously with web-based applications. He calls this vision "software plus online services."

I interviewed the CEO of NetSuite, Zach Nelson. According to him: "Larry Ellison once told me that the best thing that happened to Oracle in the early eighties was IBM's announcement of a relational database. That announcement created enormous demand that IBM couldn't meet, but Oracle could.

"Microsoft's announcement will have a similar effect. They are essentially telling small-and-medium sized businesses to buy on demand applications, but unfortunately Microsoft won't have any to sell them for a few years."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates InvestorOffering.com.