Circa 1993, when only the senior executives were lucky enough to have 17-inch monitors, businesses would buy floppy disks full of imagery called clip art. One of those images was a bubbly cloud. Originally, this represented the telephone network. Then it came to represent the Internet, and now the cloud represents a cloud - well, not really. Let's take a look at what's happened to this puffy little orb.

For most people, the ‘90s cloud icon represented everything that was the responsibility of a utility company. Nobody questioned the size, shape, or color. And then, as the Internet slowly became valuable, the icon grew more relevant and it rose from the sea of PowerPoint obscurity to represent the world wide interwebopsherenets. Soon, Super Bowl ads were pushing more routers than beer. Meanwhile, terms like ‘application service provider' (ASP) and ‘Internet service provider' (ISP) reigned as our favorite tech acronyms (actually initialisms) - until February 2001 when all the ASPs and ISPs went out of business (or so it seemed...).

Then, from the ashes of the dot.com era, as business realized that they needed to sell something of value, and "pre-IPO" became a bad thing, comes the "rise of the services." Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Was there no limit to where AAS could take us? (Queue scratching record sound). Hmm, that won't work. Sorry Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - I can't say you without laughing.

Now just when you thought it was safe to go back into hi-tech, from nowhere, someone brilliantly resurrected "cloud," and in doing so, found another way to confuse people by re-assigning a definition to an even less intuitive term. And here we are. It caught on and people understand it (remarkably). Cloud is everywhere and it's hard to believe that it will clear out anytime soon. Will "cloud" be replaced by a new word? Maybe. But more importantly, will the model for cloud computing continue to be relevant 10-20 years into the future? I venture to say "yes." In fact, I think it will be so relevant, so widespread, so quickly, that we will soon no longer need to call attention to it and the beloved little cloud icon will fade back into obscurity.

Check back for my insightful review of what will come to be known as the ampersand dynasty as we explore whether or not "@" has finally earned a dedicated key on your keyboard.

*Cloud clip art courtesy of Microsoft clip art gallery.