Informationweek Commentary Here are some trends revealed from a decade's worth of research. Credit: Alexander via Adobe Stock As the concept of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) began to dominate IT thinking in 2012, the time was right to better understand how companies were relying on IaaS cloud computing providers. So was born annual research that delved into how organizations’ cloud strategies and how their cloud usage met business needs. On the heels of the 10 th annual Flexera State of the Cloud I took a look back to highlight trends and signify areas of focus for the years ahead. Multi-Cloud In the early 2010s, with the volatility in the public cloud space as new cloud providers emerged (and some existing ones retreated and eventually disappeared), cloud adoption was shifting from ad hoc to strategic. IT executives had the foresight to realize that multi-cloud was -- and would continue to be -- a viable and desirable approach for their IT estates of the future.