ABSTRACT
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. – Albert Einstein
In This Chapter Trying to predict the future of clouds is like trying to nail Jello to a treewhat doesn’t wiggle, slips and slides. What we can do is take a historical perspective and extrapolate forward, sprinkle lightly with educated guesses and perhaps add a dash of wild guess to keep things interesting. We’re already starting to see the cloud warriors setting up the chess pieces, and we can only hope that the best solution will win. We must note that, in the time it’s taken to write this book, some topics have moved from their original position in this chapter into earlier chapters on current cloud deployment. It’s possible that others will change in the near future, but we’ll forge ahead boldly, nonetheless. Some of our predictions will cover:
• Specialized clouds. Just because clouds want to be platforms and nonspecific doesn’t mean that we won’t find exceptions to the rule. Specialization is a natural occurrence, but will these become the norm or the exception?
