Is the Cloud free?

One of the attractive sides of the Cloud Computing movement is that the price for so many things is zero which begs the question how is anyone going to make money.  Monetizing the new businesses that drive the Cloud or exist in the Cloud is in its early stages.  The players that are trying to get market share like Amazon's EC2 or Rackspace are going to battle with aggressive pricing models for their infrastructure. This is to the benefit of the customer who can now make decisions easier about developing, deploying, or just running their applications at lower costs than ownership would be without any of the hassle associated with ownership.

The question is whether or not this model will survive and if it does, what are the margins that will now be associated with it. Like most developments of the past, being early out in the race is a good thing, but doesn't guarantee your survival. Also, typically in a new and disruptive market, a new player arrives and figures the business model while the fight of the original stakeholders rages on.


One thing for sure, someone will be paying for all of the free stuff.  Everyone is looking for the sponsorship that will be needed to not only make these businesses profitable, but lucrative as well as attractive to the customers. I've got to believe it will be worked out, but not without some losers along the way and I'm hoping its not the customer.