A lot has been published recently about cloud computing. I guess the real question about cloud computing, is it really a passing fad? Something akin to the dot com era of the past. For those who still remember the truly heady days of the emphatic boom and bust. Hopefully now these days will remain a distant memory of the technological past. A stain maybe, but hopefully not a permanent virtual brake of technological evolution.

These are very interesting questions and ones which we need to really understand in order for the future of cloud computing to be fully realised and understood.

It is quite interesting, that Gartner has placed the concept of cloud computing on what it refers to as the top of the hype cycle, but the question remains, is it really hype or is there more substance in cloud computing?

I guess this is one of the principal reasons why there is such a great deal of confusion around this subject, as were often asked, “Why should we believe the hype?”

After all, we all can recall, what happened in the boom and bust days of technological stupidity e.g. the Year 2000 bug and the unfulfilled promises of instant millionaires that were to be created from the dot com days only to be now relegated (thankfully) to the virtual computing junkyards of the past. Essentially, a lot of us got our fingers burnt from the unrealised promises and the big budgets assigned to meet these great but largely unfilled expectations.

These are truly interesting times I believe, and like the unrealised opportunities from the dark distant past of when the Internet was merely a military closed network, when it was called plain old ARPANET, a network created, to facilitate computer engineers to share information between distant large computers, to where it is today in comparison, I mean who would have imagined the present possibilities? I mean who would have foreseen it, to where it is today, to be such an integral part of our daily lexicon of life, as we see our kids using the Internet as a virtual library of information and knowledge where once upon a time we sought the same information from huge books called encyclopaedias. So I guess the question is, is cloud computing, an opportunity for us to do things differently, a way we can use and view technology in different ways that we can’t really imagine right now?

Is it a technology only for the bold, who believe in its future, or are we embarking on yet another unfulfilled promise from technology, a fad if you will?

This is what the cloud computing advisor is about, a great opportunity to really explore what is and how business technology will converge as a true enabler for bigger and better things. After all was it it Einstein, who said for us to create something new (a new solution) that we cannot address the problem in the same line of thinking? Or some words to that effect, but you get my point?

We need to create a different perspective, another view to create a different context of understanding. Lets try not to be too cynical about cloud computing, and just resolve ourselves to yet another fad, that should be dismissed. But lets the embrace it for its potential, which is not an evolution, but a potential revolution in terms of doing things differently, therefore the question is, do you want to be left out?