Cloud computing will make as much of an impact on the world as e-business did, an analyst firm has claimed.
However, the cloud will not just bring benefits to firms, it will have negative effects as well, Gartner has suggested.
"Overall, there are very real trends toward cloud platforms and also toward massively scalable processing," said Stephen Prentice, vice president and Gartner fellow.
"Virtualisation, service orientation and the internet have converged to sponsor a phenomenon that enables individuals and businesses to choose how they'll acquire or deliver IT services, with reduced emphasis on the constraints of traditional software and hardware licensing models."
It now appears that more people are understanding the central ideas behind cloud computing and seeing the possibilities it offers, Gartner added.
"The potential benefits of cloud are a shift from 'capacity' on demand to capability' on demand, a reduced cost of computing resources and a shift from technology use to value' consumption," said Rakesh Kumar, research vice president at the analyst firm.
UK communications minister Ed Vaizey recently talked up how cloud computing could help with the explosion of portable devices.
"[Cloud computing] is especially significant today, at a time when we are seeing an explosion in the number of portable devices with limited storage capacity," Vaizey said during a speech at the UK China internet forum, held in London.
Read on for our special report into the cloud.
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