Google has dropped its cloud computing prices and other vendors are expected to follow suit, but the lower pricing may not be the key lure for attracting enterprises to the cloud.

While the concept behind the "Internet of Things" has been around for about two decades, NEST, the web-enabled thermostat company recently purchased by Google, has popularized the concept. Today, a data-driven infrastructure of internet-connected devices that control utilities, guide our retail shopping experiences, and monitor our health is far from science fiction.

For all the enthusiasm surrounding the government's move to the cloud - and there's no shortage - one prominent federal CIO is emphatic that cloud computing, for all its virtues, is no panacea for the government's technology challenges.

Time to scrap your legacy I.T. systems. But how exactly should you go about it?

There is no shortage of software-as-a-service (SaaS)–based manufacturing enterprise resource planning software offerings nowadays, for almost any vertical manufacturing market segment. But while cloud and hosted solutions are routine for many types of business software across various industries, manufacturing businesses still express a lot of skepticism, uncertainty and concern about the applicability of cloud software to their business.

IT departments need to watch out for business units or even individual workers going rogue and bypassing IT to go straight to the cloud.

Analyst Insight: For both B2C and B2B, cloud technology is nothing new, but for supply chains the adoption has assumed a more guarded pace. That is to be expected: supply chain professionals are accustomed to operating in a world built on legacy applications and bolt-on point solutions. The promise of the cloud had been elusive, but supply chain systems are beginning to take advantage of the business model changes afforded by cloud solutions. - Guy F. Courtin, Vice President, Research, SCM World