Cisco: A world of clouds on the horizon

Speaking at the Cloud Connect Conference and Expo held in Santa Clara, California, a Cisco executive recently told audience members that a number of different clouds could be on the horizon.

Cisco CTO Lew Tucker explained that the cloud's massive growth has established a technology environment where "the network is the computer," and thus, companies need to have secure infrastructure in place.

Furthermore, Tucker explained that, as the cloud market expands, the possibility of multiple provider clouds or a number of vertical- and industry-specific clouds could be on the way. Also, as the market for the managed IT service grows, more companies will begin moving away from data centers in favor of the cloud.

Currently, many companies have started using mobile devices that are connected to the cloud in order to best share information and files. However, Tucker stated the cloud could move past traditional devices, such as computers and smartphones, during the next decade. Homes, appliances and even cars could join the cloud by 2020, according to Tucker.

Thus, as more companies begin to see the benefit of cloud computing, Tucker summarized that we could soon see "a world of many clouds."

Tucker's claims might have some market researchers adjusting their predicitons for the market. IDC estimated the public cloud sector would be worth $29.5 billion by 2015.