Innovating in the Cloud

This paper describes salient issues in cloud computing capable of facilitating innovation in organisations. The holy grail of the attainment of sustained competitive advantage has long featured in business strategy and has been heavily discussed over the last few decades in both the management and information systems literature bases, with emerging technologies and computing paradigms considered as potential key enablers.  Cloud computing may offer a new architecture in fostering innovation. Recently it has been argued that the real strength of cloud computing is that it is a catalyst for innovation and in keeping with Moores Law, as cloud computing becomes more cheaper and ubiquitous further opportunities for innovation will manifest (Brynjolfsson, Hofmann and Jordan, 2010).  Focusing on the potential value to organisations of cloud computing, in this paper we outline particular aspects of contemporary concern to organisations innovating for competitive advantage, and we identify a set of topical areas in the cloud space requiring further research effort by the information systems community.