Let’s be clear from the outset; I’ve got no axe to grind either way on the subject of cloud computing.  Like many emerging technologies and practices it will find it’s place and evolve rapidly and, as it matures and becomes part of the fabric of the IT world, no-one will give it a second thought.

But right now it’s still a talking point and probably more relevant now than ever before.  Whenever there’s a convergence of new technology becoming commercially viable with an economic environment receptive to it, you will get an explosion in take-up.  In fact, you’ll most likely be somewhere along the steepest part of the adoption curve.  It seems to me that we could be on the cusp of that phenomenon at the moment.

So what’s my point?  I’ve just stated the obvious so far after all.  Well it’s this; over the last couple of decades the IT industry has promised much in terms of serving up real value for the businesses.  Unfortunately that history is littered with numerous examples of hype exceeding delivery, or in other words mismatched expectation.  If we can learn one thing from these painful lessons it’s that we have to curb the hype.  And we shouldn’t by shy of helping our customers rigorougly assess whether cloud is right for them.

Undoubtedly cloud based offerings will be appropriate for some applications and not others.  So let’s avoid turning the cloud into a fluffy white elephant.