Steve Forbes urged solution providers to ready themselves for vigorous economic growth nationwide over the next two or three years.

"We're not a declining power," Forbes told 1,700 attendees Monday of the Ingram Micro ONE event in Las Vegas. "We're about to be a major rising power once again."

Forbes, CEO of Forbes Inc. and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, said the internet has allowed all but the most complex or unusual tasks to be automated, outsourced or completed online.

"The web is a constant commoditizer," Forbes said. "It is doing away with layers and layers in terms of management and in terms of distribution."

The two-time Republican presidential candidate detailed the effects of the internet on the publishing industry, as well as how regulations and the cloud could reshape the healthcare and financial verticals.

As the World Wide Web entered the mainstream in the mid-1990s, Forbes opted to house the magazine's online effort in a different building with separate editorial and support staffs to ensure that it wouldn't be twisted to meet current print needs.  

But by the late 2000s, Forbes realized online was so integral to his magazine's overall mission that he combined the two divisions.

Still, 99 percent of Forbes's web content doesn't appear in the print magazine and is instead produced by a network of 1,400 freelancers who are compensated based on the level of web traffic their stories generate. Forbes now has 115,000 online posts each year.

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