At Headspring, we are embracing Microsoft Azure and have, for example, this year moved our web site to Azure from shared hosting. (Thank you Tim Thomas!) This is one of many examples of our reliance on cloud computing, an ever-deepening trend for us.
Is it expensive? Not really. The most extreme example I can think of in which cloud hosting is expensive compared to an alternative is the difference between hosting one web site in a windows shared hosting environment versus spinning up a Rackspace slice in a Windows environment or undertaking a minimum commitment to Azure. The difference is about $600 per year as of this writing. That is the difference between $100 per year for the shared environment and $700 per year for the cloud environment.
What's more, even if this does seem like a big distinction, note that the gap will only tighten up. Clouds are new and their pricing will fall. Network Solutions can't cut back expenses much more to pass a savings on to you. They are running a lean ship as it is.
What is the trend here? Could there come a day when there is effectively no price difference at all and thus all of the Mom and Pop hosting companies that have come and gone in the past dozen years see their era come to a close? Is a new era in hosting dominated by Microsoft, Rackspace, and a few other key big fish dawning? It seems to me that the days in which any small business owner may offer hosting as a service are slipping away.
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