I received an email today from Jim Seward, New Media Executive with Version One a document management company in the United Kingdom. Jim said he got some good information from the LoadStorm blog concerning cloud computing for their research, and they produced an article to address the confusion.

This research highlights exactly the problem I have been discussing with many of my developer friends, venture capitalists, and IT execs: Nobody has a clear idea of what cloud computing is or does.

I was on a panel about cloud computing a couple of months ago. It was shocking to hear all the questions about SaaS model. My position is that SaaS, on-demand, or any form of new web business model isn't cloud. Cloud computing is IMHO:

• Providing commoditized access to server horsepower, bandwidth, and other traditional data center resources.
• Use of the resources does not require a long-term contract.
• The level of usage can be very small, very large, for a few minutes, or for years.
• The customer pays only for what is used.
• Technical details about speeds/feeds, network engineering, and basic infrastructure are abstracted from the customer.
• Web application developers can take advantage of these resources, and control these resources, through open APIs that allow new forms of solutions to be built.
• The customer doesn't care where the resources are located as long as performance/latency are within expected parameters.

Jim gave me permission to link to their article and to the original research piece because he feels it could be of value to our site visitors. Here are the highlights as I see it:

• 41% of senior IT professionals (IT Directors/Managers in UK firms) admit that they “don’t know” what cloud computing is.
• 66% of UK senior finance professionals (finance directors and managers) are confused about cloud computing.
• 5% say that they use cloud computing “a lot”
• 19% say they only use cloud computing sparingly.
• 47% admit that their company doesn’t use cloud computing at all.
• 29% concede that they “don’t know” whether their organisation uses it or not.
• 2% say that their company is “definitely” going to invest in cloud computing within the next twelve months
• 30% state that their organisations “may” invest in this technology.
• 45% admit that they “don’t know” whether their organisations will be investing in it or not.
• 23% state that they currently have no investment plans.
• Key business drivers cited include reduction in overhead, ease of use, and cost savings.

• Of IT professionals who profess to know what cloud computing is:
  1. 17% understand cloud computing to be internet-based computing
  2. 11% believe it is a combination of internet-based computing, software as a service (SAAS), software on demand, an outsourced or managed service and a hosted software service.
  3. 72% understand cloud computing to be a mixture of the above.