This technology is reaching the top of the hype curve. Enterprises have to give it a serious look. As I see it, it is a combination of infrastructural services and software as a service. On the plus side, this trend could reduce the complexity of infrastructure within a company by simply using a third party's infrastructure. Similarly, application maintenance costs can be brought down by having vendors provide it as a service. Some issues have to be resolved before this gets accepted like a utility. The key one revolved around data. How do you protect your data from being compromised? In addition, compliance requirements could force enterprises to deal with their own data. With compelling benefits, these issues will be resolved through technology and policy solutions.