Private clouds are a matter of scale

I came across an article about some new technology coming out of Oracle related to cloud computing.  Although I'm not a fan of Oracle's cloud technology, I don't agree that the technology doesn't qualify as being a cloud.  While reading the article, I was surprised to read that private clouds are not even real clouds!  The author refers to private clouds as a way of managing resources in a cloud-like way, but are not clouds.  I completely disagree with that.  Why isn't a private cloud a "true cloud"?  The author defines a cloud as "...improving use and cutting costs by giving buyers as-needed access to a portion of a much larger pool of shared resources".   To me, private clouds still fall under this definition.  Why does the larger pool of shared resources have to belong to a different company?  Why does that company have to sell those resources to another company?

Some large companies have multiple divisions.  One central IT division can create a "large pool of shared resources" and "sell" those services to the other divisions.  If one division has a sudden need for more resources, the central IT division can decrease the resources for one division and increase the resources for another division.  To me, that is the key to cloud computing.  With cloud computing, the subset of resources that a "unit" is using should be elastic.  If you require a 20% increase in resources, you should be able to increase your capacity in a relatively low amount of time.  That "unit" using the resources does not have to be a different company.  They just have to be able to get resources if they need them.  This private cloud example matches what Amazon does, but Amazon does it in a much larger scale; selling resources to other companies.  A private cloud is still a cloud, but instead of one massive company selling resources to a lot of small companies, you have one division selling resources to a few other divisions in the same company.

Given the definition that the author gives, Oracle's offering could be a "true cloud".  The author says that a company buying a fixed pool of resources makes a mockery of cloud computing.  I think ignoring the size of a company makes a mockery of how business works.