Gartner released the latest iteration of their hype cycle for cloud computing earlier this week, and Louis Columbus is amongst those taking a look. The concept of cloud computing itself, Gartner suggests, is crossing the ‘peak of inflated expectations’ (people reckon it’s the answer to every conceivable problem) and heading down the ‘trough of disillusionment’ (“cloud? meh”). Some of this is driven by rampant ‘cloud washing,’ as vendors scramble to rebrand last year’s so-so product as a shiny new cloud-powered solution. Individual pieces of the cloud story are fairing better, with virtualization and SaaS amongst those Gartner is comfortable placing on the ‘slope of enlightenment’ (“actually, this cloud stuff can be useful”). Gartner seem to produce more and more of these hype cycles these days, and although some of the language is a bit odd, and it’s easy to quibble with the placing (or total non-placement) of certain concepts, they do still seem reasonably valuable in offering a snapshot of the manner in which a set of trends are perceived to be moving. Take a look, and see what you think.