The creation of standards and providers of those standards at all levels of the stack, will allow for the formation of competitive utility computing markets.
This will have multiple effects, not least of which is the balancing supply and demand more effectively than today's situation and the creation of a downward pressure on price.
They will also allow for the formation of brokerages - swapping your service between providers to obtain the best cost - and exchanges whilst simultaneously undermining subscription type models for service provision.
They will also enable developers to focus more on building the new rather than repetition, as well as reducing some job categories in IT but also creating others.
Most importantly these markets will provide a direct relationship between what we use and what we pay.
This should challenge the ideas that every company needs to store everyone's data, further encourage the growth of SaaS, the creation of open business procedures, configurable virtual niche businesses and so forth.
It may also force more businesses to look closely at the worth of something in order to determine their choices and priorities, as by their very nature utility environment are more worth based.
The more you consume, the more it costs you.
Client: "We'd like to build this internet thingy - how much will it cost?"
Supplier: "Can you give me details on what you want and how many people will use it?"
Client: "Sorry? we want to know how much it will cost?"
Supplier: "The service is charged on a utility basis - so it depends upon how much you use it"
Client: "We don't know that, it all depends upon what happens, what people will want and how popular it is. We need to get the cost sorted in order to get the budget and determine the ROI"
Supplier: "Well the cost will vary with success of your internet thingy - do you have an idea of the worth of this activity?"
Client: "no"
Supplier: "there's your problem."
