Cloud computing and outsourcing: where does one end and the other begin?

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Colin Barker.

For companies looking to take the complexity out of managing their IT infrastructure outsourcing has long been a popular option, allowing them to hand over the problem to a services company used to dealing with the intricacies of technology.

But now cloud is offering a similar deal: the ability to simplify both at the level of the application and from a budget point of view. Working out which to use — and when — will be a tricky balancing act that CIOs will have to get used to managing. Right now, as the hotter concept, cloud is generating much more excitement than traditional outsourcing — indeed, some companies are concerned that their existing outsourcing contracts are holding them back from the benefits of the cloud…

Cloud is far less mature than outsourcing, which has been going on for decades, but is more radical because it involves the automation of a process rather than just shifting the process (often unchanged) to an outsourcer…

Read more from the source @ http://www.zdnet.com/cloud-computing-and-outsourcing-where-does-one-end-and-the-other-begin-7000017827/