单选题 It doesn't take long to get a good feel for the potential of cloud computing and how it can offer ready access to entirely new business capabilities, less expensive IT resources, and unrivaled flexibility for businesses of every size. Since becoming a hot topic early 2008 as major vendors, including top firms such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, jumped on the bandwagon with a wide-range of offerings, cloud computing has consistently stayed on the industry's radar.
With leading companies still joining the movement—including IBM, HP, and Salesforce—cloud computing has moved from a cottage industry to one of the bigger growth areas in the computing business, just as the industry as a whole begins to take serious lumps from the recession.
The onus is now on businesses to take advantage of cloud computing to cut costs and become more agile. In the process, they will have some hard choices to make—some intriguing ones too—if they want to access the many advantages that cloud computing platforms can provide.
There are also some non-trivial challenges involved in adopting cloud computing that must be watched closely as well. These includes a long list of issues such as the security and privacy of business data in remote 3rd party data centers, the dreaded concerns about platform lock-in, worries about reliability and performance, and even fears about making the wrong decision before the industry begins to mature.
However, in a business environment where change is almost mandatory in order to survive, cloud computing appears to offer significant economic benefits if the risks can be offset. Hence, one of the bigger challenges IT departments will face this year is whether they can take the plunge with cloud computing quickly enough to benefit their organizations as a whole.
Phil Wainewright has covered some of the more interesting issues swirling around cloud computing of late including the default lock-out that occurs in the event of the demise of a cloud computing provider as well as the brewing SLA battles between the major providers. This underscores hew the cloud computing space is where the new platform wars are forming and it's sizing up to be as big or bigger than earlier ones. The good news for now: In a wide-open new industry, there is no clear leader today and choice prevails.
This brings up the side discussion of what actually constitutes cloud computing, since everyone seems to be applying the label to anything that runs on the network. Is it Web hosting of your application code? Is it a software platform as an on-demand service? Do SaaS applications count as cloud computing? The answers to all these questions are a qualified yes; the answer hovers roughly around the outsourcing of computing of any kind (CPU, storage, apps, etc.) using a shared cost, commodity utility model. In general, you know if you're involved with cloud computing of some kind if you're receiving a bill for computing services being done for you somewhere else but which you can access directly.

单选题 What does the phrase "stayed on the industry's radar" (Para. 1) probably mean?
A. Being combined with radar function.
B. Being taken as the industry's focus.
C. Being outside the industry's consideration.
D. Being too expensive to be accomplished.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 含义题。根据题干定位至第一段。最后一句提到，从2008年早期起，随着包括顶级企业亚马逊、谷歌和微软在内的主要经销商的大量产品进入该领域后，云计算便成为一个热门话题，一直stayed on the industry's radar。由此可推知，此处短语意为“备受该行业的关注”，故B项为正确答案。C项与原文正相反，故可直接排除；A项局限于短语字面含义，与原文不符，故排除；原文并未提及价格，D项属主观臆断，因此应该排除。
单选题 According to the passage, cloud computing
A. takes serious problems to the computing business.
B. is only suitable for the leading computing companies.
C. can help the computing business face up to the recession.
D. is the most profitable area in the computing business.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。第二段主要介绍了经济危机的出现使得整个计算机行业也受到影响，随后又说到云计算的快速发展。最后一句点明云计算可帮助计算机行业摆脱经济危机，与C项内容一致，为正确答案。A项与第二段意思相反，故排除；B项含义绝对化，且原文未提及，故排除；原文没有提到在计算机行业其他方面，云计算能带来最大的利益，因此应该排除D项。
单选题 In order to benefit their organizations, the IT departments
A. have to keep waiting until the industry is mature.
B. should adopt cloud computing as soon as possible.
C. must avoid the usage of remote 3rd party data centers.
D. need to put aside the constantly changing business environment.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。根据题干定位至第五段。最后一句点明了IT行业今年要面临的一个较大挑战，就是他们能否及时地利用云计算来果断行事，从而使其整个行业获利，由此可知B项为正确答案。
单选题 Phil Wainewright holds the idea that
A. the cloud computing industry needs no leader.
B. the major providers provide the best platforms.
C. the providers should compete with each other.
D. the cloud computing industry is still immature.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 推断题。根据题干定位至第六段。第六段开头提及菲尔·韦恩赖特指出与云计算相关的争议，最后一句指出云计算领域至今还没有明确的领导者，而且各种选择很多。由此可知他的观点是云计算还不成熟，故D项为答案。第六段最后一句只是说云计算领域现今还没有明确的领导者，而非该行业不需要领导者，故排除A项；第六段第一句只是提及主要供应商之间的服务协议之争，他的观点并不是供应商提供了最好的平台，也不是供应商之间应该互相竞争，因此应该排除B项和C项。
单选题 As to the constitution of cloud computing
A. it applies to anything that we can access on the network.
B. it does not include the SaaS applications.
C. it might be a software platform as a service.
D. it costs a lot for your computing services.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。根据题干定位至最后一段。该段第三句陈述，云计算是一个作为急需服务的软件平台。由此可推知，C项与之一致，故为答案。A项含义绝对化，故排除；由末段第四、五句可知，SaaS applications与云计算一样，故排除含义相反的B项；末段末尾只是提及计算机服务的账单，并不是说费用昂贵，因此应该排除D项。