Back in January, we declared that 2009 would be the Year of the Cloud. We’d just launched BusinessCloud9 and as we looked at the year ahead we reckoned that we’d be in for a busy time. We were right.
The past year has seen Cloud Computing twist, evolve and move ever more firmly onto the mainstream computing and corporate agendas. Companies such as Telegraph Media Group, Lancaster Landmark Hotel Group and The Wise Group have reaped the benefits of making the move to the Cloud, while the public sector is set to be revolutionised by the roll out of Cloud Computing as a delivery mechanism for vital public services.
We’ve seen the Cloud Computing vendor landscape move on as well. No longer can we refer to the likes of salesforce.com and NetSuite, our Platinum Sponsors today, as newcomers or start-ups, but rather as mature, mainstream providers. Pure-play Cloud Computing firms are successfully engaging at a mission- critical enterprise level with high profile organisations, as proven by the likes of Siemen’s recent commitment to roll out SuccessFactors to 420,000 people worldwide or RentoKil and Jaguar Land Rover’s adoption of Google Apps.
And we’ve watched as the IT industry establishment evolved in 2009 with gold standard firms such as SAP, Microsoft and Oracle mapping out their own Cloud gambits, while giants such as Tibco, IBM, BT and CSC rolled out Cloud services and infrastructure offerings to underpin and support the Cloud Computing revolution.
This was the year of the Cloud. But more than that, it was perhaps the year that kicked off the decade of the Cloud. And that in turn is the decade that will see a paradigm-shifting transformation in the way that organisations such as yours access, utilise and pay for their computing resources. It’s a technological transformation that will also revolutionise the way that organisations operate and the way that people within those organisations work and interact, not only with one another, but with their customers, partners and suppliers.
That’s what this week's BusinessCloud 09 Summit is all about. It’s about embracing this change, it’s about asking what the Cloud can do for you and your organisation, and it’s about giving you the knowledge and the language to engage in this vitally important debate. Cloud Computing needs to be on every organisation’s corporate and computing agendas. Not all aspects of the Cloud will suit or fit every organisation; some will move slower than others; some may never move at all. But now is the time to be asking the questions and now is the time to be looking for answers.
I hope all of you who are joining us on 2nd December will get the most out of the Cloud Computing event of the year.
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