Andy McLoughlin, co-founder, Huddle

Like Web 2.0, the cloud—or cloud computing—is a wonderfully zeitgeisty phrase that chief information officers and vendors love to throw around but, when pushed, are generally unable to put their finger on exactly what it means.

It has been used to describe next-generation network architectures, utility computing and server virtualisation, but what is still of most interest is how companies can utilise the Web to deliver low-cost, scalable and secure business applications.

Is 2010 the year that cloud computing takes enterprise by storm? I believe so. The near-ubiquity of broadband in the home and office (there are increasingly blurry lines between the two) coupled with the explosion of consumer Web services such as Facebook and Google Docs means that chief information officers are acutely aware of the cost savings and flexibility that working in the cloud affords.

The economics are compelling. Traditional capital expenditure is lowered as software doesn't need to be purchased outright for initial or occasional use, servers don't need to be bought and managed, and Derek in IT doesn't need to be paid for support.

Security and uptime, IT departments' traditional bugbears with ASP (application service provider) and SaaS (software as a service), are becoming non-issues as vendors invest heavily in scalable architecture that outperforms anything that corporate IT can put together.

Availability of 99.99 per cent is not uncommon—it's the standard at Huddle—and I would argue that our security is equal to or better than most IT departments' offerings. After all, data security is our business. The cloud isn't going anywhere and canny leaders will be looking now at the next system to migrate to the sky.

Jon Collins, managing director, Freeform Dynamics

Nothing should be trusted simply because it happens to be the next big thing. Trusting anything new, without diligent and thorough evaluation, would be folly. This is particularly true with cloud computing, given nobody really knows what it is. Definitions abound, but the buzzword bingo tactics mean it is difficult to discern noise from signal.

Should you completely distrust the cloud, then? Of course not—plenty of innovation has taken place in this space already. The Amazons and Googles have cracked certain challenges around resource provisioning, and Salesforce.com has delivered online applications cost-effectively where others have failed. But that doesn't make cloud computing the answer to everything.

A thorough analysis of costs, benefits and risks must be carried out. Whatever is brought in from the cloud will have to work alongside internal systems and applications, which means striking a balance with what is done in-house.

Trust is hard to lose and even more difficult to regain, which is why you need to be sure that any service you adopt ticks all the necessary boxes. Many sourcing failures can be put down to poor due diligence, inadequate contractual frameworks, or a lack of experience in supplier management.

Strip the cloud to fundamentals and it is as much about packaging,
financing and delivery as anything to do with IT. It is likely that vendors, services companies and other providers will feel the bigger impact as they differentiate themselves based on these new models. But for end-users, it is crucial to ignore the hype and focus on what is being delivered.