With the erratic state of the economy over the past 12 months, budgets have been tight. With pockets of the market starting to show signs of a gradual recovery, IT departments are looking to technologies such as cloud computing, which promise to make utility-based IT a reality. Technologies that can be leveraged to scale back operations in periods of slowdown and rapidly expand in times of growth are attracting much attention, but many are proprietary and not yet industry standard. The uncertainty in the economy and the uncertainty on the technology front leaves many scrambling to find a way to cope.

Cloud computing is a tempting answer. It’s cheaper, faster and more flexible. Studies show that most best-of-breed companies spend 35 percent of their budgets on innovation and 65 percent on maintenance – just keeping things going. If cloud delivers on its promise – reducing the cost of maintenance while allowing more flexibility – then large enterprises will be happy; they’ll have their resources and scale but with the speed of a startup.