SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE

A recent article in Mckinsey Quarterly discusses about delivering Software as a "SERVICE"..Pl read at..
http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_page.aspx?ar=2006&L2=4

The logic being that instead of Cos spending money on purchasing and hosting/loading on own computers and servers it can subscribe to the service and hopefully the automatic(?) upgrades..

I wonder what its impact will be on Indian IT Cos who are into SW???For the Cos how does it help in profit generation?

IN India where the basic OS like Windows is still largely pirated esp in the SOHO and Individual segment. could we also expect some variant where in we can log on to an OS??? say like windows vista. I for one am waiting for availability of OS which i can carry in my pen drive or PDA /mobile communicator and plug in and use!

can some of you offer your views?
Dilip Nambiar