Remember when Steve Ballmer made this statement? "About 70 percent of our folks are doing things that are entirely cloud-based, or cloud inspired," he told an audience at the University of Washington last March. "And by a year from now that will be 90 percent."

At the time I thought: Yeah, right.

The cloud is so difficult to define, and Microsoft's cloud offerings had been so slow to emerge, I couldn't bring myself to believe that claim, especially with Ballmer's "cloud inspired" location leaving several football fields of wiggle room. For those reasons and more, two weeks ago I pretty much dismissed the announcement of the forthcoming Microsoft Office 365 as a repackaging of Microsoft BPOS (Business Productivity Online Services), a cloud offering that has failed to get much traction.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has sent a message of late that Microsoft is "all in" when it comes to cloud computing. In an interview with InformationWeek editors, Ballmer made clear that this all-in cloud computing bet isn't merely a long-term, over-the-horizon play. The cloud growth--"hockey stick" growth, he said -- is taking off right now. And Ballmer makes a passionate case for how the investment Microsoft has made in cloud computing products and infrastructure over the last five years makes it different from rivals Google, Amazon, and Salesforce.

We pushed to clarify--when does that hockey stick growth take off? We're not there yet, right? "I don't know. It sure feels like we're there today to me," Ballmer said.

He added, however, that most lines of business software--industry-specific applications or transaction systems, for example--aren't going to the cloud en masse yet. Platform as a service offerings, like Microsoft's Azure, haven't taken off. But with what he calls "information worker infrastructure" -- think Exchange, SharePoint, and Office software -- CIOs are ready to move quickly to the cloud.

"Look, I don't want to oversell or undersell, but the truth of the matter is there is not an enterprise customer I visit today where this is not an issue -- just not," Ballmer said. Any CIO considering an upgrade to the company's e-mail or other collaboration platforms has to at least consider going to a cloud-based infrastructure. "Everybody is saying, look, next time I touch anything, I'm going. If I'm not touching anything, maybe I don't go," Ballmer said. "But if I'm really going to touch something, I'm going to have this [cloud] discussion."

 For original article by Chris Murphy click here

I ran across an informative article from Appirio ( www.appirio.com) - a cloud solution provider, predicting that innovation from cloud ecosystems next year will remove many of the remaining barriers to enterprise adoption of cloud. With so many clear demonstrations of business cases from 2009 (Avon, Japan Post, Starbucks) Appirio believes that the success of the cloud will continue its course to become mainstream in 2010, here's why-

 

Appirio’s 2010 predictions include:

1. Cloud developer community grows faster than open-source. Today's vendor-specific developer communities will be complemented by a community dedicated to the general discipline of building applications on the cloud, disrupting existing on-premise developer communities. The combination will launch a new generation of 'cloud developers.'
2. Cloud standards won't (and shouldn't) happen. The pace of innovation is so rapid in the cloud that the emergence of truly open cloud standards won't yet be possible, except at the lowest levels of infrastructure. Traditional vendors will attempt to muddy the waters across layers and claim the 'standards high ground' with efforts like the Open Cloud Manifesto.
3. Cloud providers tackle lock-in. Platform lock-in remains one of the major concerns keeping CIOs from building applications on PaaS. In 2010 we expect to see major initiatives from cloud providers to overcome this objection, either revolutionary (e.g., Force.com supporting other languages) or evolutionary (e.g., application migration frameworks or platform 'porting' toolkits.)
4. Cloud integration will get an enterprise poster-child. Boomi and Cast Iron have had a fantastic 2009 and we expect one will land a major enterprise customer in 2010 that replaces on-premise integration technology with a cloud-based alternative.
5. Enterprise apps get Googled. Google's investments in its cloud platform will transform Google Apps from a simple Exchange/Sharepoint replacement into a legitimate front end for enterprise applications (e.g., Google Web Toolkit, Secure Data Connector, and the Google Gadget Framework.)
6. Enterprise collaboration is a feature, not a business. Salesforce Chatter and Google Wave have shown the value of real-time collaboration that is seamlessly integrated with business applications. Standalone enterprise collaboration offerings will have difficulty competing.
7. Microsoft lets Azure cannibalize a global account. Microsoft has shown that it's serious about Azure at this year's Professional Developers Conference. We predict that Azure will cannibalize Microsoft's on-premise footprint at a global account.
8. Cloud computing consolidation. With 2000+ providers, the cloud ecosystem is ripe for consolidation. Salesforce.com and Google are likely to continue with point acquisitions, but they won't be alone. Having missed the first wave of innovation in cloud computing (and lacking any other on-premise technology to acquire) we expect Oracle to buy into the industry that Larry Ellison has dismissed as 'water vapor.' Maybe they'll finally snap up NetSuite.
9. Global Systems Integrators will do nothing more than cloud marketing. The most innovative thing we expect from Accenture next year is a replacement for its Tiger Woods ad campaign.
10. The real innovation will be in the business of cloud computing, not the technology. Cloud providers will become dramatically easier to do business with (e.g., Amazon Spot Markets) and new business models will emerge to make the cloud more consumable (e.g., cloud insurance providers, cloud security auditors, cloud brokerages.)

To weigh in on Appirio's 2010 picks, provide comment, or see those predictions that didn't make the cut, please visit www.appirio.com/predict10.