It seems like every year since 2008 has been dubbed the “Year of the Cloud,” but I think 2010 was the real deal. Cloud computing, as a delivery model, has matured to a point where we can really see where it’s headed and how it will shape up. There are legitimate trends that allow us to get past mere speculation and actually make informed predictions about what the future holds for cloud computing.
It’s in this light, in fact, that I wrote yesterday about Eucalyptus Systems being at a buy-or-get-bought moment. It’s not an indictment against the company by any means, but, rather, an opinion formed after analyzing a spate of large-vendor acquisitions. CA has spent hundreds of millions, and isn’t done yet. Dell is building a cloud portfolio that takes it beyond just servers. Red Hat is starting its cloud M&A activity, after building an impressive foundation in-house. IBM has carried its perpetual acquisition strategy into the cloud, as well. As I predict in a feature at GigaOM Pro, however, more M&A is just one of the trends we can expect to advance in 2011 as the real cloud computing picture emerges.
Here are my five predictions for cloud in 2011, with a few links apiece to provide context. For the full analysis on what I think might happen in the coming months, and why, read the full post here:
1. More specialized clouds and cloud services.
- Amazon’s Cloud Gets a Supercomputing Cluster
- Can Heroku Become the Official Cloud of Facebook Apps?
- And Now Playing, GPU Clouds
2. Infrastructure startups will get bought.
- CA Delivers on Cloud Investment With Service-Measurement Suite
- What to Make of Benioff’s Growing Cloud Empire
- Is Cloudera Allying Its Way to an Acquisition?
- Red Hat Buys Makara, Adds PaaS to Its Cloud Mix
3. The fusion of IaaS and PaaS will continue.
- Microsoft Targets Amazon EC2 With New Windows Azure Features
- Are the Stars Aligning for an Amazon PaaS Offering?
- Multi-Language PaaS: Salesforce.com Is Just One Option (sub req’d)
4. Low-power processors will have their day.
- Tilera Offering Tweaked Hardware for the Cloud
- Smooth-Stone Gets New Name; Promises 10x Efficiency Gains
- SeaMicro’s Low-power Server Finally Launches
5. A cloud provider will end up in court.
- The Cloud Meets the Law: Where Wikileaks Went Wrong
- Why Most Cloud Contracts Shouldn’t Be Negotiable
- SimpleCDN Takedown: A Cautionary Tale for Resellers?
Image courtesy of Flickr user Bitterjug.
Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

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