Cloud Computing Still in Its Infancy, Study Says

We all know how important and ubiquitous email has become, not just in business but in our lives. Can you remember when you learned about email (i.e., electronic mail, e-mail) for the first time and didn’t yet know how fundamentally this technology would change the way we communicate and do business? Now think for a minute about cloud computing as being in that same sort of unpredictable infancy.

That’s one of the findings of a study released last month by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) and ISACA. The two organizations surveyed more than 250 participants ranging from end users to C-level executives and from organizations of all sizes. Using factors such as market size and diversity, levels of acceptance and integration, and amount of innovation, the survey determined that cloud computing is still in its infancy…


CSA and ISACA have defined four stages of development for cloud technology:

• Infancy: "potential for growth and innovation . . . has not been realized"
• Growth: widespread adoption and innovation takes place and the technology is well understood
• Maturity: the main players are well-established, and the technology is "business as usual"
• Decline: the market becomes saturated, and there’s little room for new entrants or products

Within the study results, respondents rated Software as a Service (SaaS) as barely into the Growth phase and ahead of both Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), with the overall result putting cloud computing squarely in its squalling infancy. One of the characteristics of this stage is that it’s the era of early adopters, according to the study — and most businesses don’t want to be stuck changing the diapers for an untested technology…

Read more from the source @ http://www.windowsitpro.com/blog/cloud-computing-7/cloud-computing2/cloud-computing-infancy-study-144514