Cloud Computing and the Emerging Market

The aim of this Chapter is to review the range of emerging 'cloud' marketing alternatives from dedicated private communication solutions through to multi tenanted public solutions ([1]Amrhein et al 2010; [33]Vaquero et al 2009; [2]Armbrust et al 2009). Cloud computing is a global trend which promises to be the single biggest growth area in ICT. Current estimates are that by 2020, approximately 14% of all digital information will be stored in the cloud ([10]Gantz and Reinsel, 2010). Organizations are looking to cloud computing as a utility ([5]Buyya et al 2009) to lower ICT costs and boost effectiveness, and are seeking to move from fixed capital expenditure investments to variable operating expenses, using these resources to withstand seasonal peaks and for improved shareholder value. Cloud vendor organizations are developing so they are well placed to take advantage of this technology trend and the anticipated market growth. This requires investing in leading software and virtualised hardware so as to offer customers security, speed, lower costs and service reliability over high performance networks. Cloud computing is an evolving market opportunity for both customer and cloud vendor alike. However, in the development of cloud marketing strategies and campaigns there are significant risks for both vendor and consumer. These are discussed in this Chapter.