Strange considering IBM invented the utility model. http://www.computerworld.com/article/2578752/it-management/i... The thing to remember about the utility model (think electrical utilities) is that once you control the supply you control the price. During this adoption phase the prices will remain low, but they will likely go the way of electricity costs if adoption reaches critical mass. I think right now they want to get the message out that the "cloud" is profitable because I am hearing a lot of "trough of disillusionment" from decision makers. For the startup or web company the cloud has a lot of attractive use cases, but for the enterprise data center it's a bit more sketchy. And, today it's not hard for sysadmins to build their own private cloud. The only thing that will tip the scales for the cloud and attract the enterprise data center is if we can no longer purchase computing hardware. I certainly hope that day never arrives, but look at the common light bulb. We've been fooled before.