In a May 2008 report, Merrill Lynch estimated that 12% of the worldwide software market would start using cloud technology in the next 5 years and that the annual revenue for cloud computing will increase to $95 billion in the same period. Now, according to the Wall Street Journal, AT&T has become the latest company to invest in cloud computing.

The Journal quotes Daryl Plummer, a cloud-computing analyst at Gartner Inc., as confirming that businesses are increasingly concerned with "elasticity" in their technology infrastructure. "A business has unknown capacity requirements, or maybe believes they know what the capacity requirements are, but is going to be surprised by something," he told a WSJ reporter.

The Journal report continues:

"Cloud computing's appeal is that it can eliminate a company's need for its own data center. It also lets businesses pay for bandwidth on an on-demand basis.

One of AT&T's first customers is the U.S. Olympic Committee. The organization, which runs teamusa.org and other Olympics Web sites, knows traffic will leap this month as fans watch videos and look up event results and then drop sharply as soon as the games are over. It plans to use the AT&T service to increase its network bandwidth temporarily."