Not all major changes are visible to the naked eye. Standing next to a glacier it is difficult to determine direction (does it grow or shrink across seasons) and watching continents move takes even some stamina for the casual observer. Luckily this is not the case for cloud computing.

Apart from the very noticeable cloud hype (more on the cycle of that soon) there is also very noticeable growth.   At the end of a deep and wide group effort, Gartner published its «Forecast: Public Cloud Services, Worldwide, 2010-2016, 2Q12 Update» accompanied by Market Definitions and Methodology: Public Cloud Services. As I highlighted several years ago in Can the Real Cloud Market Size Please Stand Up? definitions are all important when trying to compare various cloud forecasts and especially cloud forecast categories.