What Is The Future Of Cloud Computing For Smaller Businesses?What Is The Future Of Cloud Computing For Smaller Businesses?

Vendors are urging companies to make the leap onto the cloud, but are they listening to the needs and concerns of smaller companies? What can convince reluctant businesses -- and why should they switch over, anyway?Although the sun is shining in San Francisco today, it's still been a cloudy day for me. Sun Microsystems hosted a conference this afternoon about cloud computing, and one of the presentations at bMighty's bOptimized virtual event covered the hot topic, too.

I've noticed cloud chatter picking up steadily during the past year or so, and I'm sure a lot of smaller companies are wondering: Is cloud computing the wave of the future -- or is it just a lot of hype?

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Though Sun didn't have any new cloud product announcements today, it took the time to describe the differences in clouds, what the company focuses on, and what it thinks the future holds -- expect there to be many clouds, said Dave Douglas, senior vice president of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company's cloud computing business unit -- some public, some private, and some hybrid. Douglas said he believes in the potential for these clouds to be open and compatible -- openness being critical to cloud space.

OK, but what's critical to the smaller companies that are holding back on adopting a cloud environment? Concerns about security and integration reign among the top reasons for not jumping on the cloud bandwagon, but as evidenced by an unscientific poll during bMighty's virtual event, a sense of "if it ain't broke, why fix it" was the top reason for sticking to the same old way of doing things.

So what will prompt smaller companies to dust off that inertia and switch to the cloud, considering it often costs those companies very little -- and sometimes nothing? And are vendors going to make the effort to market their wares to these businesses?