So what do I mean by this?

Well if we take a brief look at history we have seen good ideas and new technology provided by the industry that has taken a number of years to really take a hold in the market space.  I think the most recent example of this is the slow adoption of USB.

USB was first introduced in the mid to late 1990s with the 1.0 release touting faster I/O over regular serial and able to chain multiple devices. At that time we saw a small number of devices, mainly early webcams and mice keyboard combos.  But really it did not take off until the iterations through versions 1.1 to 2.0 did it really take hold with a flurry of USB-ready hardware. This took nearly five years after its initial release.

Is Cloud adoption in the current economic climate and uncertainty likely to suffer the same?

I think that for now Cloud will exist in a more hybrid transition state where it’s almost like a one foot in the pond deal to test the water.

What I mean is companies are going to want to keep mission-critical systems in the back office in either their or their provider’s data centers and limit Cloud usage to web application front ends. I think this could also be the model used in the Cloud super computing arena.

Conclusion
This should still be an interesting journey for any suppliers of Cloud technology and prospective clients alike. Maybe attitudes going into 2011 will be more open to the idea with what looks to be no letup in the global financial landscape.

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