Service as a Software Substitute
Think twice about cloud computing. Do you want to rent computing power, or do you want to own computing power?
If you think you cannot practically own enough computing power, think again. What is it that you want to compute? Is it really that complicated that you'll need access to large data farms?
In several cases, if you have the requirement for such a large computing infrastructure, it is more likely that you have the resources to purchase a data center for yourself.