Technology has been marked by several transformations over the past 60 years. These transformational moments provide a significant opportunity for business to leapfrog competitors by streamlining operations, reducing costs and increasing revenues. The buzz everyone is now calling "The Cloud" is one of these transformational moments.

Technology as we know it started with big, expensive machines (mainframes) suitable for large scale computational work. Mainframes were augmented and replaced by mini-computers (e.g. DEC PDP, VAX, etc.) in the 1970's and 1980's for midsized and departmental computational work. Networked Personal Computers transformed technology in the 1980's and 1990's by simplifying computers while reducing costs for processing and storage. Networked PCs became the workhorse for individual, workgroup, departmental and vertical applications work. The internet transformed computing again in the 1990's and 2000's by allowing networks to interoperate and cooperatively process communications and computational work instantly throughout the world.

Throughout each of the transformational moments organizations had to own all pieces of the technology solution. It was necessary to procure hardware, operating systems, applications, networking, telecom and the premises to house these facilities and staff in order to successfully create, deploy, maintain and enhance technology. Business had to buy and support enough of these pieces to support their top load levels even though their average hardware and networking utilization may actually be 25% or less. Ordering hardware, software and configuring the physical real estate to house these pieces require time, effort and costs.

The Cloud is essentially your data center operated by another organization and rented on an as necessary basis. It is the natural evolution of computing given the interconnected nature of our society today. Think of the cloud like you would think of your electric utility. One would rarely consider building out power generation facilities for each and every business. Its natural to consume electricity based on usage and let the utilities design and maintain the power plants to generate this electricity. The Cloud is our new computing power plant where we can build, maintain and enhance applications for use across our organizations and the world without ever touching hardware, operating systems, networking, telecom and server rooms.

The advent of The Cloud creates a unique moment in time for business. Foresighted businesses can design, deploy and maintain applications faster with less cost. Cloud based computing will ultimately transform how each and every business delivers and maintains nearly all technology in the future.