For all its promise of lower cost and easier management of software applications, cloud technology has yet to be fully embraced by supply chain managers.

In the world of supply chains, signing on a new partner or trading partner has typically marked the beginning of a marathon. Whether by electronic data interchange, EDIFACT, cXML, ebXML, value added networks, portals or the rest of the alphabet soup of connectivity approaches, a great deal of time and effort is required to get trading partners’ systems aligned - even if trading hubs are involved. Every company has a different system, and different processes for getting things done. For a company with thousands of trading partners, imagine how much in resources it gobbles up just to manage and keep every partnership aligned. Of course, cloud changes all that right?

When is it better to use a public cloud versus a managed hosting or collocation environment? A recent case study finds that if an organization is spending more than $7,644 in Amazon’s cloud each month, then it can be cheaper to operate a private cloud.

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.