What is a tipping point? Where is the tipping point? Wikipedia says that the tipping point describes the point at which ‘a slow gradual change becomes irreversible and then proceeds with gathering pace.’

I envision the game of Jenga falling - when someone makes a wrong move and the entire tower comes crashing down.

It’s difficult to pin down the precise moment when an idea or a movement reaches a stage of cultural adoption. Early adopters are considered either brave or stupid, but if the adoption pays off, healthy benefits can be reaped (both financially and for increased/improved work flow).

In the context of cloud computing, a large question marks looms over this tipping point. Have we reached that point? Did it pass? Are we on the cusp?

Some vendors believe that this age is fully upon us, and has been for some time. There are companies out there that can provide completely cloud-based computing solutions, and advocate moving one’s enterprise IT completely over to it. It’s a tall order, but this option is a real one. Amazon Web Services, Salesforce.com and Google are all messaging this point loud and clear.

In the market, a CXO has a lot of diverse options when choosing how they want their IT to function. The vendors I just mentioned are only a handful of companies in this universe of choices. Plus, there are some real objections as to why cloud computing is not a good move. What about custom applications?

Cloud vendors have an answer to this common question. Force.com, Rails and PHP hosting have all demonstrated that the reality of custom cloud-based computing is here with us now.

Enterprises can even handle their transactions in the cloud via PayPal - eBay’s cloud solution. So is there functionality that can’t be found in the cloud?

I believe that this point has been tipped.