The Cloud Will Be Open Source And Ubiquitous

When you architect servers with virtualization, distributed computing and the ability to handle big data, so a single Web site or job can take power of the whole system when needed, that's a cloud.

Salesforce.com is not a cloud. It is Software as a Service, something that can result from a cloud architecture however does not require a cloud. The same can be said for Apple's iCloud. It too is SaaS, which could come from a cloud or from a standard enterprise set-up.

Microsoft has abandoned its high performance computing architecture, called Dryad, in favor of open source Hadoop. This followed similar decisions by EMC, Oracle and IBM.

Cloud requirement because clouds are complicated

Open source has become a cloud requirement because clouds are complicated, requiring a lot of cooperation among vendors to develop, and because everyone who has been involved in enterprise computing is rushing to the architecture such as fast as they can. Time is of the essence, that is, and proprietary advantage has to go out the window.

Over the straightway few years near all Web hosting, all online services and Software as a Service offerings will become cloud based. Even phone companies are moving to the cloud, or until further notice their suppliers are.