Fast Forward to the Past: Mainframes!
or
Young, Clueless Darwinian Entreprenurs Ignorant of the Past

Three things have come to my attention that give strong evidence that some people simply have no clue.

1. A survey arrived that was asking the question: should we provide Cloud Services?,
2. I have a Windows 7 laptop, and
3. I see that Microquish is looking at providing Office "online"

Once upon a time, long, long ago ;-) there were "mainframes".
Big expensive machines, locked away in sealed, heavily cooled rooms, with a flock of white shirted acolytes to care for it.  The big power hungry machines had to be maintained, updated, backed up, and kept working at great effort.

All was good in white shirt land but the peasants were getting restless.  It seems that they didn't understand the complexity, the difficulty, the cost of doing things on the mainframe.  They didn't like things changing without notice, things not working, mysterious "down time", etc

Then, from the land of mainframes, came a new device.
Yes, it had been brain-deaded with a hack processor to keep it from competing with the cash cow mainframes, but it let people control their data, control changes, paid once and use, etc!  Lotus 123 empowered the peasants and they successfully revolted and make heros of several alternative companies.

But, just like in the Innovators Dilemma, the new "heros" continued to improve their products.
What did they put in it?
Why the same "stuff" that only the mainframes use to have.
....but why should they "sell" this excellent, innovative stuff to the unwashed hoi polloi?

Along with opportunity and power, complexity increased.
"help us! help us" the peasants cried, "this is too hard".

So, in the back room, the descendants of the new heroes and their new kin, strategize about what to do.  Being newbies, they had read fairy tales about those "mainframe" thingies but had no clue.
"Why, we'll just move all the complexity, etc to a remote site where we can charge a "rent" for it and make a fortune with a guaranteed revenue stream."

Yes!
Technology changes just sooooo fast!
Why, we have never, ever invented this wheel before and we'll make a fortune!