By Eric Gens

In the past year, I’ve had hundreds of conversations with client and press about the emerging cloud services model, and its impact on the IT industry.  As you might imagine, more than a few folks question whether the cloud services model will really be as pervasive and transforming as its proponents argue.   The skeptics point, legitimately, to the many remaining challenges of cloud services adoption, particularly around security, availability, performance, limited customization, lack of standards, etc.