I read the article over at GigaOM by Gary Orenstein and posted a response in the comments. I just thought I'd re-post it here as well,

from the comment I posted. . .

One might argue that when you ask "Where are we headed next" and say, "a combination of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS," you are talking about a private cloud deployment on-premise or off-premise in a traditional managed or co-location data center connected to the corporate network just like any 3rd party site would be but managed using cloud management tools the likes of AppLogic, Appistry, OpenQRM, Eucalyptus, Enomaly ECP, Nimbus, Gigaspaces or others.

You own or rent the hardware (networking and servers), you install the appropriate fabric management (cloud management tools) software for your needs. You mix in the platform as a service tools (like Appistry or GigaspacesXAP). Spread the SaaS icing on top of your own custom built software (as a service w/ an API) or use something commercial (like Zimbra) for your SaaS tier if it fits.

Where we are headed next is to the broad realization that this rapid and expansive burst of information technology innovation into the main stream branded as "cloud computing" is the path forward to the next-generation of IT deployment, development, and management both inside and outside the data center with linkage to the public cloud computing vendors resources to use them as needed and pay as you go. Work being done along the lines of VPN-Cubed is crucial when we are headed is towards a public/private hybrid model that will push the boundaries of what our networks can do more than ever before. Let's hope all that Internet 2 work and related research is panning out. We're going to need it!

It's a great time to be in IT! Fantastic things happening all around all day every day.