...I expect to see broad alliances form between the incumbents, perhaps into 2-3 major camps. Cisco and VMware will lead one such alliance; IBM and Juniper may lead another; and there could be an open source virtualization alliance driven by Citrix/Zen and select service providers who want to build their own cloud club. In addition, there will be a range of service providers who will shift from hosting to cloud, and we could see some transformational surprises come from these camps as well.Some very interesting viewpoints worth thinking about.
I think both Amazon and Google will be limited to serving small and medium-sized cloud offerings, despite the buzz and the success of their core businesses (books and advertising). Let me add an Apple (iTunes-like) cloud driven by iPhones in a new netbook form factor as my wild idea for the month, along with a Cisco OEM netbook.
...We are about to see a fundamental shift in IT that could drive costs out of systems and networks and enable vast new potentials. Those who continue to manually manage their networks and systems will be victims of The CIO Shell Game.
Kevin
ZeroTouch IT Ltd
