A paradigm shift is taking place in the IT industry. Whereas customers who wanted to support their business processes with IT used to face having to buy all the necessary hardware, operating systems and other components and decide on a software platform, there is now the realistic vision of obtaining the functionality they require under a pure leasing model where they merely pay for what they use. IT will be delivered as a service in future. It will no longer be paid for by means of initial investment in hardware, upgrades and software licenses and by fixed maintenance fees, but on the basis of usage under “pay-as-you-go” models. 

The basis for this paradigm shift is the Internet as an IT platform that is now available everywhere, emerging virtualization technologies, hardware commoditization, the trend toward IT standardization and open source software, and pressure to cut costs at IT departments. Companies that were not previously associated with conventional IT services like outsourcing now offer on-demand services such as e-mail services, virtualized infrastructures, etc. The success of Google, Amazon and Microsoft thus acts as a major catalyst in development of the market and also as the technological foundation for cloud computing. The struggle between pure Internet players like Amazon, Google, Salesforce and SuccessFactors and traditional enterprise vendors has only just begun. Vendors such as SAP and Oracle are coming under particular pressure and making huge attempts to “transform” their on-premise offerings and provide them in the form of cloud computing. The desire by customers to break down monolithic IT structures and so reduce one-sided dependency on software vendors also furthers the chances of cloud computing.