The Economics of the Cloud

Computing is undergoing a seismic shift from client/server to the cloud, a shift similar in importance and impact to the transition from mainframe to client/server. Speculation abounds on how this new era will evolve in the coming years, and IT leaders have a critical need for a clear vision of where the industry is heading. We believe the best way to form this vision is to understand the underlying economics driving the long-term trend. In this paper, we will assess the economics of the cloud by using in-depth modeling. We then use this framework to better understand the long-term IT landscape.