The technology world divided.

As many of you know, Sage is beginning to offer SalesLogix in the cloud.  Currently the offer is to limited customers and partners, but soon it will be available to the general public.  Sage is not the only company with an interest in the cloud, it is becoming a major a topic of discussion throughout the industry with people arguing the benefits for both public and private clouds.  Below are a couple paragraphs from an article by Andrew R. Hinkley that discusses public vs. private clouds:

"One debate rocking the cloud computing industry is whether public clouds or private clouds will be the dominant technology, and which will generate the most revenue for solution providers.

The recent divide between public and private clouds was sparked by industry experts suggesting that private clouds -- clouds behind the corporate firewall accessible only by people within that organization -- will fade over time and are nothing more than a stop-gap before taking it to the public cloud. Public clouds, like those offered byAmazon (NSDQ: AMZN), Google and others, on the other hand, are clouds accessible by everyone from anywhere. The difference between private and public clouds is similar to the difference between the corporate LAN and the public Internet.

One argument against private clouds is the cost. While users have more perceived control, they pay a higher price, somewhat defeating the potential cost savings that drives companies to the cloud in the first place -- the promise of reduced capital expenditures and a monthly operational expense." 

-Brianna