Cloud Computing Trend in the new year

As the beginning of the new year is a time for resolutions and predictions, I would like to offer up one of my own.
With a majority of companies both large and small having been tasked over the last years with converting their current software development environments to the cloud, many companies took their first step in the "cloud pool" with Infrastructure as a Service applications. This allows access in the cloud environment by renting infrastructure that you would typically control or manage in-house. This leads to advantages such as budgeting of hardware costs, less overhead for server maintenance and general economies of scale based on a typical IAAS company having massive platforms to serve multiple customers. All the while, you can maintain more control over your environment.

I see IAAS continuing to be a very viable solution for companies but the next question that is always asked from companies is "how can I enable my developers on our cloud environment?". To do this, I believe companies will be shifting their cloud focus to Platform as a service in the upcoming year. In PAAS, programming platforms (java, .NET, etc) and especially APIs for building applications in your cloud environment are exposed as a capability.

Although it allows you less control than IAAS, the advantages of utilizing Platform as a Service will allow for a higher level of abstraction and creativity from development teams especially when it comes to API usage.