Page 120 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

MANA GEMENT STRATEGIES F O R THE CL OUD R EV OL UTION

software and new services for the business and fewer resources
into maintenance.

The Buzz Is Back

At various stages in the rapid expansion of computing, a cer-
tain buzz has been evident at gatherings where people are so
excited that they can’t stop talking about how awesome the lat-
est technology is. They assure each other that they are com-
mitted to doing something with it. I remember hearing that
buzz before the introduction of the IBM PC, after the an-
nouncement of the Apple Macintosh, and when Java appeared

as the seemingly ideal language for the rapidly emerging
Internet computing space. I heard it again at the Cloud Com-
puting Conference & Expo in Santa Clara, California, in No-
vember 2009.
During the recession of 2008–2009, computer shows were
forlorn places, with the number of salespeople staffing booths
sometimes exceeding that of attendees wandering the aisles.
And they were unnaturally subdued. At the cloud conference,
a break in the stage proceedings led to attendees congregat-

ing on the exhibit show floor. They were talking about Ama-
zon’s latest expansion of service; they were talking about
Rackspace and Savvis claiming that they could offer private
cloud services in their shared facilities. Could they really do
that? They were talking about the vast new services that would
be invented in the cloud—the next Facebook, the next big
thing that would attract 350 million users in no time at all.

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