Alan Kaye's IT Conversations program with the Gilmour Gang interviews guest Mitch Kertzman from VC software sector specialist Hummer Winblad. Mitch shares his perspective on the trends in software and venture capital as we wind down 2004 and look to next year. The Gang looks at the recent flurry of BigCo M&A activity, the commoditization of computing at various levels in the hardware/software stack, tech CEOs as bloggers, collaboration, and the good and lame predictions for 2005.