While most technology is initially adopted by large enterprises, followed by a slow trickle-down to consumers, cloud computing has taken the opposite trajectory, says Matt Piercy, VMware VP for northern EMEA.
"At the moment, individuals and small businesses are using the cloud for e-mail," he says. "The initial lessons and learning were done by consumers, and enterprises haven't really started yet. They're learning from consumers here."
Cloud is poised to take off, Piercy asserts. "Cloud is just at the beginning and is going to go in a thousand different directions. SMEs are adopting cloud services faster, but the enterprise way of doing things is cumbersome, slow and old-fashioned. Within the last few years, cloud has gone from being something we knew was an issue, to something we are actually addressing."
When it comes to cloud, most organisations have tested a few applications but have not yet committed to anything, explains Piercy. "We're so much at the start with cloud. Enterprise customers are at the point where they're playing with applications, test driving a couple, possibly adopting new apps designed for the cloud."
This is the reason VMware has introduced its vCloud Hybrid service, expanding on its well-adopted virtualisation offerings and addressing the complications of moving applications into the cloud, he notes. "Where businesses are challenged is getting the stuff they depend on into the cloud. You can't move 30 years' of data overnight. So the bit that hasn't been addressed yet is moving those traditional applications to the cloud. But no solution has been adopted broadly - the whole cloud thing has yet to play out."
Unlike cloud, virtualisation is "not considered to be clever any more", adds Piercy. "It's mainstream. When you get to the point where more than half of the industry has moved, you can say things have changed."
Virtualisation saw two tipping points in its journey to mainstream adoption: the first was the virtualisation of 50% of workloads, and the second - more significant - was when more than half of all physical servers became virtual, Piercy explains.
In fact, virtualisation has played out to the point that some trends are already on the way out, he adds. "In the last few years, vendors of apps have woken up to virtualisation, so a lot of the tricky wizardry that we used to have to do is gone. Virtualisation is easy now."
With progress into the cloud still on the brink of mass realisation, there is plenty of opportunity for enterprises to look for a solution that suits them, says Piercy. "There's no doubt in my mind that everything will move into the cloud ultimately - but a lot of what we do is on refresh cycles. We're not going to turn the industry on its head overnight."
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