That's why I'm not a fan of Hosted Exchange

From Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet: Microsoft will be promoting its hosted CRM and hosted messaging/collaboration services at NXTComm this week. Not software licenses, mind you, but services. Four corporate customers, including Energizer, are already using Microsoft-hosted apps, plus-

"Earlier this month, Ron Markezich, Microsoft Vice President of Managed Solutions, said Microsoft is looking to build and support a Microsoft-hosted service component for almost every one of its software products. Next up are a Microsoft-hosted business-intelligence solution and some kind of Microsoft-hosted SoftGrid application-virtualization offering... Microsoft currently has a “very small sales team” selling Microsoft-hosted services. Microsoft is relying primarily on its dedicated account executives to let customers know they can buy these services directly from Microsoft."

Now seems like a terrible time to be a Windows hosting provider, especially if you've developed any kind of SaaS strategy based on Microsoft products... Of course, Microsoft would be glad to have you resell its version of Google Apps for Partners. They develop and host the software; you sign up customers and provide support. Does this arrangement leave hosting partners (well, soon to be support partners) with enough room for differentiation? I'm not so sure.