ABSTRACT
Clouds are, if anything, moving targets of misunderstood buzz words that seem to have caught the attention of industry journalists. Like its namesake, the concept of a cloud is nebulous and at the moment is changing faster than most of us can keep up. However, like rain clouds, cloud computing has the promise of providing a massive surge of growth in an industry that is struggling to grow up. This entry provides some historical background for the development of cloud technology, because the present day (and the future) cloud environments are built on the shoulders of the giants that came before them.
