As businesses look for new ways to reduce their operational expenses, both of the aforementioned forms of Cloud Computing are becoming more compelling. We’re not talking about another failing business model of the late 90’s, but one which has a solid business foundation, and proven technology to assure it happens. Virtualization software delivered by VMware, Microsoft, Zen and others coupled with new powerful multi-core processor technology such as Nehalem and Istanbul will enable Enterprise and Mid Market businesses to radically optimize their efficiency.

Cloud services will reduce data center footprints and provide a level of business agility most companies have never realized. Company supply chains will reach their full potential, because they’ll have a level of dynamism, enabling them to move work loads immediately. Listen, desktops are not going anywhere, but the hypervisor or the virtualization abstraction layer allows you to choose what operating system you want. If you can get that in a utility form factor with the right amount of storage, compute, and memory at the right price, people are going to have at it. Will this exist for all desktop applications? No, not immediately, but every major ERP vendor is adjusting their business models.

So will Cloud Computing, both public and private be widely adopted in the near future, maybe not, but suffice it to say, it is a matter of time, and I believe that will be in less than 5 years.