The PaaS value proposition is simple: Bring your code, and we'll handle everything else for you -- Internet connectivity, power, hardware, operating system, software, monitoring, backup, restore, failover, scaling and more. IT can focus on writing code to solve business problems and leave the mechanics of infrastructure and operations to the vendor. In theory, you get a best-practices deployment, including security and business continuity, at a lower cost and better quality versus having your own staff do the work.

We say, "in theory" because these are still early days, and vendors provide so many different services -- with so many moving parts -- that it will take time to demonstrate stability to CIOs. However, we're convinced that PaaS is the future, and that companies that fail to consider it will be at a disadvantage.

What jumped out at me in our meeting was the cost per desktop. Based on the number of desktop instances they felt that their "pod" of host and storage could support, the average cost per desktop was about $500 to $600, prior to the actual device that sits on the desktop.

Obviously the device has some bearing on the cost per desktop, but this company was counting on the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend to alleviate all of those costs. However, the company reimbursed for the device brought in by employees, so it really should have been factored into the overall cost. But for now, let's leave the cost per desktop at $500 to $600. I think that cost is still way too high for broad adoption of VDI to make sense.

The key factor that drives up the cost per desktop is simple. How many desktops can you support per host? Obviously 2,000 desktops per host is going to be far less expensive per desktop than 1,000. What is the big limiter to desktop density? Storage -- primarily storage performance, not storage capacity. Capacity issues, assuming your storage has the performance capabilities to handle the dynamic write nature of thin provisioning, golden masters and linked clones, have largely been solved thanks to the efficiency of these technologies.

The transaction systems were systems of record. The interaction systems are "systems of engagement" that will be key to business success in the future, Tucker said, crediting Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm , with coining the "systems of engagement" phrase.

Tucker gave one of the opening keynotes at the Cloud Connect 2013 show, and said there were deeper trends behind mammoth data centers like Facebook's Prineville, Ore., complex and consumers' love of smartphones, iPads and other handheld devices. The small computing device communicates from many locations with the big data center, using a small application to get a piece of work done, he noted.

"I don't think we'll see any more big productivity suites, like Microsoft Office," he said. Instead, users will learn a constantly changing mix of small apps that do the things they're most interested in doing now. It's all part of corporations trying to become more responsive and interactive with their environment -- to behave "less like organizations, more like organisms," Tucker said.

I was planning to travel for several days last week and have previously lived off an iPad for short trips, but for longer stretches, or if I know I'll have to do some serious writing and editing, I'll normally drag along a MacBook or old Dell Latitude reinvigorated by Ubuntu. But this time, having bought a Chromebook last fall for some testing, finding it to be quite usable and having no fear of being offline thanks to Verizon's impressive LTE network along with a data plan allowing tethering (more on that later), I figured why not give the cloud a try? After all, the Chromebook is lighter than either of my laptops and I'd used it enough to have apps and services set up for all of my basic IT needs.

The PC hiatus started on a Saturday as I tweaked the Chromebook, but the real sink-or-swim moment came when I decided there'd be no last-minute cheating, so I disconnected my trusty Mac Mini from its monitor and plugged in a Chromebox I'd picked up on eBay (with the best of intentions of turning it into a YouTube-streaming set-top box, but I never overcame bouts of procrastination and the inertia associated with setting up a new device).

I knew the Chromebox was snappy, since I'd snagged one of the limited edition models running a Core i5 that Google distributed at last year's I/O Conference (this same basic configuration has recently surfaced as a commercial product), but its performance reaffirmed my conviction to stick with the strategy. It may be overkill for a lightweight OS like Chrome, but like all Chrome devices, the first thing you notice is how fast this thing boots: under 10 seconds (8.43 to be exact as per Chrome's system diagnostics), while its desktop CPU can handle as many browser tabs you care to throw at it. Having satisfied myself that I wasn't missing anything important on a local disk drive, I set out, Chromebook and iPhone in hand.

Those are two of the conclusions that emerge from a survey by consulting firm KPMG International, "The Cloud Takes Shape, which carries the subhead "Global cloud survey: The implementation challenge."

Cloud computing has moved beyond hype into its implementation phase, the KPMG authors said. Instead of discussing whether or when they should adopt cloud computing, responses from the 674 business and IT executives surveyed illustrate that the concept is firmly implanted as a mainstream goal. "There is no longer any doubt that, as a critical set of enabling technologies, cloud can significantly impact how any organization conducts its business," the study concluded.

Implementing a cloud architecture may have to include business process redesign as well as technology infrastructure redesign. As non-IT business executives rethink what cloud computing is all about, it sometimes leads to a gap between how the two groups think about it.