Gartner has been predicting for last five years that cloud computing will have a transformational impact in next 2 to 5 year! So, it is a good time to step back and ask ourselves…

…will cloud computing ever have transformational impact?

I think the answer cannot be given in simple black-and-white term like “Yes” or “No”. Like the answer to most questions on technology choice it is “Depends”. And every depends would lead to a long discussion into various aspects of the problem.

But in case of the transformational impact of cloud computing the answer is quiet simple.

Impact of Cloud is inversely proportional to the size of the Entity

For individual, for scientific community, for startups and for SME sector cloud computing is a big deal. Larger the size of the organization lesser is the potential impact of cloud.

Personal Cloud has already transformed our lives. Just think of the many cloud services you use – Email … Social networking … Address book … Data storage service … Photo Sharing … Video sharing … Blogging … VOIP service … Location based services. Where would we be without these services? They have already transformed our lives.

BTW: I hope you do not have any doubt about these being cloud services!

For scientists, it means availability of unlimited computing power for short duration at affordable cost. Traditionally, such amount of computing power would not even be available in the most elitist of institutions.

For startups, the scalability offered by cloud can make the difference between success and failure. They do not need to worry about under investing on hardware and failing to scale if they succeed. They also do not have to worry about over investing and running out of cash sooner.

For SMEs, it means accessibility to software which would be too costly otherwise.

But as the size of the enterprise increases, the differentiator slowly vanishes. For large enterprises, the cost advantage of cloud is far from clear. Just because you can spin off an instance of a machine on a click of a button does not mean that the organization would become agile. If the ERP is moved from in-premise to cloud, would it help in generating additional revenue?

Udayan Banerjee on Google+

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