Question...

Where Is Cloud Computing Going?

I believe there is a real risk that cloud computing could lead to enterprises establishing new silos, but it *appears* from this article that Jim Kobielus and David Kelly might misunderstand the mechanism that creates the silo. The purpose of service oriented architecture is partly to bridge silos - not by making all the platforms homogenous, or even portable - but instead by making heterogenous platforms interoperable.

I think it will become common place for cloud "platform-as-a-service" offerings to support both defacto "web standards" like REST and also WS-* standards for communication and interop. Microsoft's cloud offering Windows Azure already supports this. This is necessary, but not sufficient.

Additionally, silos exist when there is a lack of support for federated Identity Managment and application management/monitoring. To avoid silos, enterprises should look for cloud platform-as-a-service offerings that support all three - data/process interoperability, federated identity management, and the ability to leverage existing application management tools with cloud apps.

At some point, it's likely that all successful cloud platforms will support all three of these flavors of interoperability. Today, Microsoft looks to me like the real leader here, as the Azure Services Platform is already on the path to deliver all of these.

How Will Cloud Computing Impact IT Vendors?

Nice panel discussion. I did have a question...

Dana, at the end where you say "So Microsoft and not the business becomes the arbiter."... Can you elaborate on what you meant here?

I'm not sure I understand your intent correctly, but my thought when reading through the post was this:

Even if Microsoft is making a new capability available (i.e., to run code in different places based on SLA, capacity demands), isn't it still the business that decides if and when to use it?