Is cloud just hype or is it here to stay?

Just this week I was asked by my team for input on five questions. In this post, I’ve written-up my answer to the first.


1) Is cloud just hype or is it here to stay?

There’s no doubt that cloud is here to stay. Major enterprises have put down serious investments in this space including my own employer a major consulting firm who is making significant investment of time and skills in the cloud.

It is easy to see why people feel that Cloud might be all hype. Since the initial simple web-based CRM offering from SFDC announced at the start of the last decade, the promised dream of cloud computing has been well publicised while real offerings were pretty scarce. There’s no wonder that many people taking a look at the offerings back then, may have concluded that there was a lot of talk and not much “behind the curtains”. While a lot has been written about cloud computing over the past years, it is only now that the model is really providing enterprise-level alternatives to businesses. There have been some significant developments in 2010 that lead me to conclude that options are now real enough to prompt all enterprises to take a look. The Google Atmosphere event that took place in April this year is a case in point. Around 300 business executives (many of those CIOs) assembled at the Googleplex to hear leaders in the IT industry share real examples of enterprise adoption of cloud solutions. And recently at

It's got serious cloud appeal

Anyone who knows anything about delivering IT solutions will have heard of cloud computing by now. Since the initial rumblings from the salesforce.com office back in the early noughties, the promised dream of cloud computing has been well publicised even while real offerings were pretty scarce. You might be excused then, for thinking that cloud computing is going to follow the many over-hyped and charred trails of other "hot" ideas in terms of visible impact to businesses. You would be very wrong with that conclusion.

While a lot has been written about cloud computing it is only now that the model is really providing enterprise-level alternatives to businesses. The options are now mature enough to prompt even the largest slumbering enterprises to raise one eyelid and take a look. The Google Atmosphere event that took place in April this year is a case in point. Around 300 business executives (many of those CIOs) assembled at the Googleplex to hear leaders in the IT industry share real examples of enterprise adoption of cloud solutions. One such speaker was Walt Oswald, CIO of Motorola who said: