The Cloud in 2010

Forrester Research recently released a report entitled “The Top Five Changes For Application Development in 2010” in which they state that the cloud will clearly pay an influential role for IT shops in 2010 and beyond. Interestingly, while they aren’t the only ones beating the run-to-the-cloud drum, there are other aspects of the cloud, particularly as it relates to levering it as a costs savings, worth mentioning.

First, when referring to the cloud, many people often delineate a public cloud from a private one. The reasons are manifold, suffice it to say, at a high level, the belief is that a private cloud offers more security and perhaps a lowering of costs (assuming you’ve already invested in a large IT infrastructure). Yet, there’s growing evidence (if you’re a student of history, that is), which suggests the savings you might experience now is short-lived. For as the public providers of cloud technologies evolve, they’ll drop their prices and offer superior service to what you could conceivably obtain in your own company. As Alistair Croll recently wrote in InformationWeek, soon

the true cloud operators will have an unavoidable cost advantage because it’s all they worry about. They’ll also be closer to consumers (because they have POPs everywhere and partnerships with content delivery systems), and connecting with consumers and partners will become an increasingly essential part of any enterprise IT strategy.

What’s more,

Computing legislation will catch up, and we’ll find better ways of auditing and inspecting systems we don’t own that will satisfy regulators. Government adoption of cloud computing, ubiquitous access to data, and the consumerization of IT will drive this.

Thus, he concludes

in three to five years, there will be a second big enterprise IT migration from private to public infrastructures.

Indeed, as history has shown, time and time again, innovation has the tendency to drive costs down and address the very fears people initially have about a nascent technology.

Not to be outdone, Bob Evans of InformationWeek recently wrote an interesting piece regarding the inevitable jump many corporations will make to the cloud so as not to fall behind from their competition. Indeed, rather than the cloud being a lot of hype (as some would suggest), its a reality for lowering costs and increasing speed to market.

The article offers a sobering statement regarding the status quo:

those executives cling to [it] for at least a while longer is simply not up to the task— and in these demanding days, the alternative isn’t just devoting a couple more years and another pile of cash to finding new solution; rather, in this highly demanding and unforgiving global marketplace, it’s oblivion.

Thus, 2010 (and beyond) is for the clouds — indeed, those who don’t make the jump might find themselves behind the eight ball of costs and unable to reach their competition (who presumably is high above them…in the clouds).