If Only I Had Cloud Computing A Few Years Ago

This is a good analogy from Larry Dignan on how Cloud computing will change the IT landscape. 

"If you woke up in the morning and read in the Wall Street Journal that an eCommerce company like Overstock.com had stopped using the USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc. to deliver their goods and, instead, leased airport hubs all over the world, bought a fleet of jets and bought thousands of trucks and started delivering the stuff themselves, you’d think they were out of their minds.  So, why is it not equally insane for financial services companies, health care institutions, manufacturing companies, bio-tech companies, pharmaceutical giants, etc. to be spending a billion dollars or much more every year on information technology infrastructure?"

A few years ago I was running an IT department before I remembered I was supposed to be in marketing.  The idea of being able to bring a web based product to market more quickly and not have to buy infrastructure to support short spikes in demand would have made a big impact on our business.  The next few years are going to be very interesting as Cloud becomes standard.