Cloudcast

Gartner Says Cloud Application Infrastructure Technologies Need Seven Years to Mature

Gartner issued a press release predicting the 3 phases of evolution for cloud computing. In the first phase, pioneers and trailblazers, Gartner predicts successful vendors will focus on rapid-application-development-oriented tools and solutions where return on investment can be acquired within 18 to 24 months.

We agree that successful cloud providers will need to prove their value quickly, but in our experience solutions will need to show positive ROI in less than 12 months given shrinking IT budgets and the current risk tolerance of IT managers. We also believe there are some other compelling use cases for cloud computing in this early phase, including training and education, IT prototyping, consulting and demos, and scalable Web hosting.

See our new white paper ‘7 Strategies to Reduce IT Costs with Cloud Computing’ for more details on the strategies we’re hearing from customers for IT cost reduction in 2009 using cloud services.

-Ian