Isn't technology marvellous. Sat in Terminal 3 at Heathrow - resisting the urge to buy something in the Armani sale and choosing to do email instead. That's dedication for you.

Last night we had a gathering of 'like minded' people in Henley from over 30 partners and from Microsoft looking at how emerging business models and emerging technologies change the way we work together in this Web 2.0 world.

It was a great evening - fine food and wine, great conversations and - more importanly - great connections. The people in the room represented a great variety of companies - start-ups and new firms with great ideas (like Zebtab, Mydeo, Sunergeo and Crisp Thinking) along with more established ISV's with SaaS offerings (Innerworkings, InPhase, Nimbus, Impaq, Nitrosell who have integrated with Office Live already), journalists, Robert from IDC who wrote the recent SaaS paper, people from the investor community (Sheetal Mehta and Alpesh Patel), leaders from BT and even consummate networkers and media guru's like Steve Moore who is involved in Wt2.

We also welcomed Vimal Sethi who leads our Developer and Platform Group in the Gulf region and is keen to replicate some of the work we are doing in the UK and attract more partners into his region. We introduced him to Valentia who have just won some business out there - another Irish partner we met through Enterprise Ireland (like Innerworkings and Nitrosell). Sunergeo are chatting with Conchango and Mobile Sense. Innerworkings are talking to Dot Net Solutions. Vimal and Sheetal - and then Fran and Sheetal - knew each other from a previous life in Silicon Valley. Funny how things come together.

We had our first 'meeting' last October with around 13 partners so it was great to see so many people in the room this time interested in innovation and 'Partnering for the Future'. We've come a long way in three months and by the time we meet again in another three months I think we will have made a lot more progress and have some tangible evidence of what these relationships really can achieve. In summing up last night I said to the group: "Let's make some money, have some fun along the way and make a difference". That's what it's all about. Watch this space....