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Businessweek: Cloud Computing changes everything

Rachael King has an article in the current issue of Businessweek, How Cloud Computing Is Changing the World. King points out that this is a sea change for the way small companies and enterprises consume software and use services, and ‘tap into Web-based applications…’

“Some analysts say cloud computing represents a sea change in the way computing is done in corporations. Merrill Lynch (MER) estimates that within the next five years, the annual global market for cloud computing will surge to $95 billion. In a May 2008 report, Merrill Lynch estimated that 12% of the worldwide software market would go to the cloud in that period.

“Those vendors that can adjust their product lines to meet the needs of large cloud computing providers stand to profit. Companies like IBM, Dell (DELL), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), for instance, are moving aggressively in this direction. On Aug. 1, IBM said it would spend $360 million to build a cloud computing data center in Research Triangle Park, N.C., bringing to nine its total of cloud computing centers worldwide. Dell is also targeting this market. The computer marker supplies products to some of the largest cloud computing providers and Web 2.0 companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo (YHOO). “We created a whole new business just to build custom products for those customers,” Dell CEO Michael Dell says.”

“One of those customers, Microsoft, has made cloud computing one of five priorities for fiscal 2009, according to a recent memo from CEO Steve Ballmer. Microsoft’s version of cloud computing, Software-plus-Services, is designed to let customers choose whether they want traditional software, software services, or a combination of the two. In the memo, Ballmer promised that employees would hear more about the company’s cloud computing platform initiatives in the next version of its Live and Online technologies, scheduled to be unveiled in October. About 9% of IT managers who responded in a Goldman Sachs (GS) survey said they planned to use Microsoft for software services this year in addition to those they already use.”

You know that something is interesting when a company tries to trademark the phrase, in this case Dell with its Cloud Computing Solutions program.

This special report, a ‘CEO Guide to Cloud Computing’, includes the following articles…

Tags: Office, Microsoft, Windows Vista, cloud computing.

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