Every supplier of ICT services and tools used nowadays the term cloud computing as a business enabler in offers. But just like the weather there are many variation and characteristics. So it needs an ICT meteorologist to see the sky through the clouds. All things considered, cloud computing is the successor of utility computing, and not as revolutionary as some vendors would have us believe. It is primarily a delivery model that goes beyond the binary choice between “do it yourself”' or “outsourcing”.
But it takes a different view of the infrastructure than we actually used these days. So whether the flight into outsourcing is actually taken on economic grounds is questionable. Due to missing possibility to weigh costs and benefits of a service (chain). At best, there is a tradeoff on the basis of cover but it is usually for organizational reasons. That's like trying to outsource your problems where Cloud Computing is only about technology.
