Of the remaining 59% of IT professionals who profess to know what cloud computing is, 17% of these understand cloud computing to be internet-based computing while 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. The remaining respondents understand cloud computing to be a mixture of the above.

Despite cloud computing being in the media spotlight, only a minority of respondents (5%) say that they use it “a lot” and less than a quarter of those surveyed (19%) reveal that they only use cloud computing sparingly. Almost half of respondents (47%) admit that their company doesn’t use cloud computing with the remaining 29% conceding that they “don’t know” whether their organisation uses it or not.

Julian Buck, General Manager of Version One, says, “Although this is only a small survey of IT professionals, the results are nonetheless very alarming, especially as IT professionals are the very people that need to understand cloud computing so that they can explain its benefits to management.”

Buck continues, “It is clear from the survey results that there are a number of contrasting views as to what cloud computing really is, which is hardly surprising in light of the many different cloud computing definitions in the public arena. For instance, Wikipedia defines it as ‘Internet-based computing’ while Gartner refers to it ‘as a service’ using Internet technologies. IT expert, John Willis, writing in his cloud blog says that ‘virtualisation is the secret sauce of a cloud’ and provides different levels of cloud computing. With so many definitions circulating, clarity is urgently needed.”

Only 2% of respondents say that their company is “definitely” going to invest in cloud computing within the next twelve months whilst 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 with the remaining 23% stating that they currently have no investment plans. For those who definitely or maybe have plans to invest in cloud computing, some of the key business drivers cited include reduction in overheads and paper, ease of use, cost savings and the ability to provide collaborative tools for teaching and learning.

Buck adds, “If organisations are going to embrace cloud computing in the future it’s essential that a single, simplified explanation is adopted by everyone. Failure to cut through the confusion could result in organisations rejecting this technology and missing out on the benefits it provides.”

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This is an early example of Cloud Computing, an entire web based operating system. I’d guess that within 10 years most people will be accessing their OS and apps across the public web from similar systems and it seems to make sense for Enterprise and other large organisations to follow. Such an approach would undoubtedly make security easier to monitor, and ultimately, I believe, easier to manage. Infrastructure would also be much easier to manage with users requiring only a thin client with all the processing taking place on the server and with software and processing resources being served up on demand to a shared user base, upgrades taking place entirely on the server.

Sign up for an account at http://g.ho.st/ (but read the Terms and conditions first…)

see also DesktopTwo https://desktoptwo.com/

($1,295.00 USD) …so unfortunately I won’t be reading it but Joe McKendrick at the Fastforward Blog has…

A new report out of Saugatuck Research, for example, declares that “SaaS is now beyond the ‘tipping point .’” The firm’s latest survey of 250 IT executives shows that not only have more than 26 percent of companies installed at least one SaaS application, representing nearly 150 percent year-over-year growth, but resistance has plunged dramatically, in terms of firms that are not planning to deploy SaaS.”…

…Saugatuck calculates that on average, the typical large enterprise now taps into at least three SaaS applications, with one in seven having greater than 10 SaaS applications.”

Read Joe’s full blog entry here:
http://www.fastforwardblog.com/2007/04/03/software-as-a-service-passes-the-tipping-point/

The Report is available for purchase here:
http://www.saugatech.com/342order.htm