For the past two years we’ve been inundated with “the cloud.” Every big (and small) IT product and service provider has a cloud-related mantra. There are some excellent examples of cloud solutions (Salesforce.com) and cloud adoption (Netflix). But for every success story there are thousands of companies that have yet to make the move to the cloud. So if we’re seeing what the cloud can do for us, why aren’t companies making the move to the cloud?

There are a couple of ways to approach the cloud. One is to utilize a service provider solution such as Amazon AWS. Many companies are adopting this solution and it works well if the features of AWS meet your needs. But if you want to build your own cloud infrastructure, it’s a tougher problem to solve. Building a private or hybrid cloud means assembling disparate components from a variety of vendors, or buying into a “stack” solution from Cisco, Oracle or other big vendors. Either solution takes a lot of work and money.

So is there any hope on the horizon for building cloud solutions from reusable components? Several industry initiatives are underway to address this problem. Read my thoughts about them over at Gerson Lehrman Group (G+).