"Is cloud computing the next big thing?"

That's the title of an article in PC Magazine.
The answer was an overwhelming yes. And PC Magazine isn't the only one taking note of this sweeping trend...

The Economist claims, "As computing moves online, the sources of power and money will increasingly be enormous 'computing clouds.'"

David Hamilton of the Financial Post says this technology "has the potential to shower billions in revenues on companies that embrace it."

And Nicholas Carr, former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, has even written an entire book on the subject, entitled The Big Switch. In it, he asserts: "The PC age is giving way to a new era: the utility age."

He goes on to make this prediction: "Rendered obsolete, the traditional PC is replaced by a simple terminal -- a 'thin client' that's little more than a monitor hooked up to the Internet."
While that may sound far-fetched, in the corporate market, sales of these "thin clients" have been growing at over 20 percent per year -- far outpacing the sales of PCs.

According to market-research firm IDC, the U.S. is now home to more than 7,000 data centers just like the one constructed on the banks of the Columbia River in 2005.

And the number of servers operating within these massive data centers is expected to grow to nearly 16 million by 2010 -- that's three times as many as a decade ago.

"Data centers have become as vital to the functioning of society as power stations." -- The Economist

The simple truth is that cloud computing is becoming as big a part of our everyday lives as cell phones or cable television.

Excerpt from report
Kate Ward
Publisher, The Motley Fool