Making the business decision to migrate to offering cloud services is hard.

It is also expensive. The capital expenditure for data center equipment, services, software, routers, SANs, backup, bandwidth, licensing, etc. is only the beginning. Then you have to float labor. You need a new set of skills so that means new talent.

After all that, you have zero revenue! (That's why companies buy rather than build - they get talent, gear, and some revenue.)

The transition is so painful - even after buying companies - that Dell is going private. The Street (Wall Street, the bankers) will destroy them while they make the transition from hardware to cloud.

CenturyLink, EarthLink, Windstream, Verizon and TWC have all made cloud or data center buys in the last 2 years. Everyone is banking on cloud services, but the payout is smaller and slower.