Times are hard, money is tight, and cost cutting seems to be the order of the day. Information technology is no exception: IT budgets are being scaled back, and where money is being spent, businesses want a lot more bang for their buck – which is making the internet-based ‘utility’ model (see box Peering through the clouds) look increasingly appealing. ‘Cloud computing adoption is growing at over six times the rate of traditional IT,’ says Frank Gens, chief analyst and senior vice president with the researcher IDC, and uptake is moving rapidly ‘from early adopters to mainstream organisations’.

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