An area light is the best option for that scene but if you were to want a
larger light source the area light shadow trick starts to break down.  An
alternative that creates more realistic soft light|shadow is radiosity,
though it's considerably slower.  Here's a short example (add +qr to the
command line).  The sky sphere serves as the light source...the light in the
scene is used for the specular highlight only.

#include "colors.inc"

global_settings{
  radiosity{
    pretrace_start 0.01
    pretrace_end 0.01
    count 100
    recursion_limit 1
    nearest_count 4
    error_bound 0.3
    brightness 1
    normal on
  }
}

sky_sphere {
pigment {
gradient y
color_map {
[0 color <.2, .3, .4>]
[.9 color <.2, .3, .4>]
[1 color 5*White]
}
scale 2
translate -1*y
}
rotate -90*x
rotate 30*x rotate 45*y
}

camera {location <1, 5, -7> look_at 1*y angle 40}

light_source {<0, 0, -1000> color .0001*White
rotate 30*x rotate 45*y
}

sphere {<0, 1, 0>, 1
pigment {color White}
finish {phong 100000 phong_size 120 diffuse .7}
normal {bumps 1 scale .3}
}

plane {y, 0
pigment {color White}
finish {diffuse .7}
}

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