To examine the mid- to long-term impact of cloud in all its various forms, the Economist Intelligence Unit invited six experts in the field to contribute original essays explaining their predictions. Those essays are collected here in a single report, named “The Impact of Cloud”, and sponsored by Fujitsu.

The contributors, and the subject of their essays, are as follows:

Mark Ridley, director of technology at recruitment website reed.co.uk, explains how cloud computing is helping to render the hierarchical organisation obsolete

Dr James Mitchell, CEO of Strategic Blue, argues that the pricing model of cloud computing must be fixed it is to reach its full potential

Dr Tua Huomo, FUTURE CLOUD action line leader at EIT ICT labs, on why cloud will force the IT industry to focus on customer value

Paul Miller, analyst and consultant at Cloud of Data, writes that cloud may help to empower customers to control their own data

Professor Ian Bitterlin, technical work group chair of The Green Grid Association, explains why cloud computing will be good for the environment

Dr Jonathan Liebenau, reader in technology management at the London School of Economics, examines why the economic benefits of cloud will be felt by all industries and countries equally

The Impact of Cloud: http://www.economistinsights.com/technology-innovation/analysis/impact-cloud