We’ve certainly come a long way. Over the last couple of years, we’ve witnessed the trials and tribulations of the early-adopters of managed cloud services, and we’ve observed how the offerings have matured to attain broad-based market acceptance.

Cloud computing has become pervasive within today’s forward thinking companies. It’s already a transformative force throughout the global networked economy. Every enterprise that uses Business Technology is either considering or implementing cloud solutions — to create a strategic advantage over their late-adopter industry peer group in the marketplace.

According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), about 77 percent of North American companies were already using at least one public cloud service in 2012. IDC believes the companies that are spending on cloud-based capability have reached a deployment pace that’s unmatched by any previous business technology transformation.

Moreover, they say that those leaders who …