For the past few years, we've all heard about "the cloud" and how it'll either save us a billion dollars and make our IT infrastructure more "agile," or that it's a scam and the end of the world for IT pros... so which is it? For the answer, join veteran IT industry watcher Mark Minasi as he dusts off his decades-old microeconomic analysis skills from his 80's stint as a senior economist in Washington and helps you get a handle on clouds. Did you know that a bit of simple math shows that cloud costs should drop significantly in the next ten years? Or that cloud computing might mean the end for some large organizations, but might make great sense for others? Or how about the fact that even though there are three major kinds of cloud vendors, none of those types are named "cumulus," "stratus," or "cirrus," despite the fact that the most catchy name for a cloud-to-cloud communications backbone would have to be "nimBUS?" Come to this talk and discover Mark's Nine Cloudy Conclusions... and have a few laughs in the process!