This week I discussed the current trends in UK legal technology with Jason Plant, who is an IT manager at a large UK law firm and also writes a popular legal technology blog titled No Option for Law Firm!.

Q: Thanks for your time and sharing your knowledge with us Jason. First off, what do you see as the most important current trends in legal technology in the UK?

A: I posted on my blog what I thought were the top 5 legal technologies in 2010 at the start of the year. I stand by them although I probably would reorder them a little to give the following as the top three.

This week I had a good discussion about technology for financial advisors with Bill Winterberg, one of the most technology forward minds in the Financial services market. Before joining the finance world, Bill was a software engineer for Hewlett Packard and this background in technology has allowed him to become a thought leader in the industry.

Bill currently writes technology columns for Morningstar Advisor, Advisors4Advisors.com as well as on his own blog called FP Pad. You can also find him doing his thing on Twitter from @BillWinterberg.

Has the world been rid of its cloud computing security concerns?

Probably not...but that day is getting closer. According to a few recent studies in a few technology conservative industries, people and businesses are becoming much more comfortable with storing and managing their data in the cloud.

Even the most technology risk-averse markets such as health care, finance and government are rapidly adopting, and even advocating, disruptive cloud technologies at an ever increasing rate.

Part I: SaaS for Lawyers; Part II: SaaS for Financial Advisors; Part III: SaaS for Accountants

With SaaS technology, the PC can be made to serve as a global network. Today, in part 2 of a 3 part series, we will discuss how financial advisors and broker dealers can reduce hardware costs, decrease their carbon footprint, increase mobility and enable collaboration with clients while providing SEC and FINRA compliance through cloud computing and SaaS.

Part I: SaaS for Lawyers; Part II: SaaS for Financial Advisors; Part III: SaaS for Accountants

JFK's goal was to send a man to the moon; Bill Gates wanted to put 'information at your fingertips'; and Sun Microsystems claimed that the computer was the network. JFK's dream was realized by Neil Armstrong, Bill Gates's dream has been realized by the iPhone and Blackberry, and Sun Microsystems dream is now truly being realized by anyone with a Facebook, Pandora, or Google account through cloud computing and SaaS.

OREM, UTAH - June 2^nd, 2010. NetDocuments, the leading global Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) content management provider, today announced that Quintec International has become a primary UK Business Solutions Partner and Authorised Training Centre.

Since its inception, Quintec International has worked with law firms, corporate legal departments, government, insurance and financial institutions providing specialist consultancy in multi-layered collaborative environments, including document and content management systems, and advanced network monitoring, control and security software.

OREM, UTAH – June 2, 2010 – NetDocuments, the leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) content management service provider, announced today that the company has extended its existing Email Management Service (EMS) for Microsoft Outlook with an intelligent predictive email filing and tagging/profiling, as well as a send & file feature to prompt users when sending emails.

The existing NetDocuments EMS offering has provided users the ability to drag and drop emails to Outlook folders that correspond to existing NetDocuments online client/matter or project-related folders. Emails are stored in NetDocuments as native Microsoft msg files, full-text searchable and accessible anywhere, anytime. Additional features such as the ability to stub email attachments, view and full-text search NetDocuments directly from within Outlook and de-duplication of emails have all been available and continue with NetDocuments EMS.

Tomorrow in New York, Microsoft is releasing its latest edition of Office 2010 Web Apps which, in my mind, will mark Microsoft's full acceptance of the SaaS software delivery model. Furthermore, Microsoft's development of web applications for the cash cow that is MS Office, officially shifts the standard from legacy software to SaaS.

In an interview with USA Today, Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce.com said, "We're entering an entirely new paradigm." This new paradigm is one where businesses and consumers alike are no longer bound to physical locations or forced to use complex technology to manage networks and files but freed to move about freely in the clouds. About this paradigm shift, ECM chief executive Joe Tucci said, "We're now going through what I believe is pretty much going to be the biggest wave in the history of information technology.''

The NetDocuments legal team is getting excited about their trip to Boston for the Association of Legal Administrators' (ALA) Annual Conference & Exposition from May 3-6 2010. We will be represented by Keith Schneider, Matt Duncan and Kirsten Walker who will be hanging out at booth #306 talking legal technology and SaaS, as well as giving out a free iPad. Stop by the booth for more details.

ALA has done a fantastic job this year preparing for the event and providing ways for those that can't make it to participate. They have already created some informative videos about the show and have an interactive Twitter account at @ALABuzz. Furthermore, the Twitter #hashtag for the show is #ALAConf and you can find everyone that will be tweeting from the show at the ALA Conference Twitter List.

OREM, UTAH – February 17, 2010 – NetDocuments, the leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) content management service provider, announced today it has completed the SAS 70 Type I audit, and it has also completed the Truste EU Safe Harbor Certification, acknowledging that NetDocuments delivers its SaaS content management service and its web site in accordance with these standards.

The SAS 70 standard (Statement on Auditing Standards No.70) was developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and is an internationally recognized auditing standard. SAS 70 designation represents that the AICPA or its designees have conducted a rigorous audit of the NetDocuments controls and safeguards over its information technology and all related processes.