The cloud has become integral to most Internet-based applications and user gadgets. This article provides a brief history of the cloud and presents a researcher’s view of the prospects for innovating at the infrastructure, middleware, and applications and delivery levels of the already crowded cloud computing stack. The global cloud computing market exceeds US$100 billion, and research in this area has rapidly matured over the last decade. During this time, many buzzwords have come and gone. Consequently, traditional concepts and conventional definitions related to the cloud are almost obsolete.1 The current cloud landscape looks very different from what may have been envisioned at its inception. It may seem that the area is saturated and there is little innovative research and development yet to be done. This naturally raises the question of what is the cloud’s future? This article first examines the multiple generations of innovation that the cloud has undergone in the last decade and then presents opportunities for modernization in this field.