IBM’s 2011 CIO study of 3000 CIOs shows 60% will use cloud computing in the next five years, twice the 2009 number of 30%. The cloud computing industry has tremendous growth opportunity. When computers and the Internet got rolling in the 1990’s, top stocks Microsoft (MSFT), Cisco (CSCO) and EMC (EMC) compounded at 43%, 93% and 82% a year (12/90-12/00).
The cloud is tough to understand. That’s why I tried to relate the top cloud stocks to the tech winners of the 1990’s. To keep it simple, I focused on three areas: what software your PC is running, how its connected on the Internet, and where the data is being stored. Software from Microsoft used to run most computers, the emerging leader in virtualization software is VMware (VMW).
What connects the computers to the Internet is networking equipment. Cisco is what we are familiar with, F5 Networks (FFIV) is the new kid on the cloud. EMC was the top-dog in data storage. Now you can rent storage of-site from Rackspace (RAX). Let’s get our heads — and maybe our money — in the cloud.
