It's just a stupid marketing term that describes things we've been doing for decades. Furthermore, the term brings with it baggage to issues that normally wouldn't be controversial or scoffed at.

Why should I "get" it?

Two words: Network Computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Computer

Indeed, "cloud computing" is so overused, misused, and overhyped that it's lost its meaning as a specific technical term. Case in point: Microsoft's bizarre "to the cloud" commercials which seem to conflate cloud computing with collaborative web applications, which is just silly.

This has been going on for a very long time. Not to say you're wrong, just that MS didn't invent the conflation.

Certainly. But MS should know better (they have a legit (seemingly) cloud computing platform), and the degree of publicity generated for this abuse of language is troublesome. There are now millions of people who never knew about "the cloud" before and now think of it as some MS invention where you can retouch photos online. :P

This just in: vague term with multiple definitions leaves people confused!

Let's take it to "The Cloud" !

Funny. I was thinking that they could have done these people a favor and defined it for them. That would have helped after writing 2 pages about how confused everybody is :-)

Does your staff know about <buzzword>? If not you should be painfully embarrased. How can you run an effective organization without <buzzword>?

When anything can be and is called "Cloud" then what's there to get?

Microsoft's stupidest advertisements to date involve people saying "To the cloud" to use what appears to be ordinary desktop applications with an "Upload to Facebook" button included. Is that really cloud computing? I guess? I have no way to say either way.

I wouldn't call Gmail cloud-based. Google manages all of their own hardware. To me, cloud computing means flexible use of shared general-purpose computing resources that are managed and provided as a service. Gmail would be cloud-based if Google ran it on a bunch of Amazon EC2 instances.

Using "cloud computing" to refer to the use of server applications over the internet is just a misunderstanding of the term. The surprising thing it reveals is that somebody is still looking for a name for that kind of computing in 2010, which suggests that they're still trying to wrap their heads around it. One wonders what kind of confusion will be created in the buzzword stratosphere (upper management) when one exec starts talking about cloud initiatives and another exec says, "What are you talking about? Our services have been cloud-based since 2002."

Of the respondents who that said their organization used Web-based software for email, CRM, productivity, conferencing, and other uses, 54% did not identify them as cloud applications.

Does this mean that 46% of respondents have the same incorrect understanding of the term that the author does, or am I the one who is wrong? Either way, this kind of confusion means that "cloud computing" does not mean anything at all anymore. I guess that makes it a blank check for bullshit artists.

If "cloud" is to have any meaning, it can't merely be synonymous with "client/server on the Internet". From here, I can't tell whether Gmail or Salesforce is a single server or a "cloud". Yes, logically I know what they are, but it's not relevant to me as a user.

I can come up with multiple possible meanings of cloud that are not vacuous, but this article does not seem to be using any of them.

This article and headline are completely misleading. The question, from TFA,

"One of the survey's questions asked: "Do you feel that the cloud has potential for your business?" 49% answered: "I don't know." 48% likewise responded "I don't know" when asked if their company used any cloud-based applications or services."

If someone asked me those questions, there are myriads reasons to respond "I don't know". Perhaps I don't know about EVERY initiative going on in the business or perhaps (gasp!) I don't believe that the cloud "magically" helps my business. It does not NECESSARILY mean that I am clueless about the cloud.

This type of thing really makes me angry.

I remember a few weeks back, Paul Buchheit was talking about how he believes ChromeOS may get merged with Android or similar and he mentioned "The basic idea is that apps and data all live on the Internet, which is has been renamed "The Cloud" " - and the response from some IT people was astounding. I had friends go, "no that's not true! Cloud is a new thing blahblahblahblah CDN blah blah blah". I mean, what the hell? It's been around longer than I've been alive!

Wow two third of the people surveyed have functions such as sales, finance, or management. How you can come up with 48% of IT Workers... For the most part of that 2/3, they don't even know Microsoft Office works on a mac.

Another marketing survey that confirms the need for the sponsoring firm. What a surprise.