Well, you are missing the point entirely : they aren’t. If you look at Amazon and Google, they rely on their own technologies. In Google’s case we now know that hey don’t stop at software to accomplish this, but that they build their own datacenter technologies — right down to the motherboards on their custom-designed servers. There is precious little in a Google datacenter that you and I can buy today.

Pay attention in class.

You could not get further from “enterprise software” if you tried and implying that what powers the cloud (for a reasonable and practical definition of the term rather than the fantasyland one) is the same software that powers the enterprise today embarrasingly reveals that you know precious little about technologies that have already been deployed.

The closest thing to enterprise components being deployed is Microsoft’s cloud offering — although that is mostly talk for now. Nobody really knows how Azure will stack up against the competition and the verdict won’t be in for another couple of years. There are some aspects of Azure that are exciting and probably the right thing to do; such as their chosen level of containment — but currently you do not find this model in the enterprise in any significant way.

1. Multi-tenancy is key to cloud optimization from a public cloud-provider’s perspective. Notice the cost differences between dedicated servers versus shared servers facilities from ISPs. If multi-tenancy is not an option, then public cloud computing gets reduced to a mere outsourcing of facilities and operations.

2. Overtime, most IT will move to the cloud. It is self-serving to assume that IT runs a business…it is the other way around…IT should support business initiatives. Bulk IT services that are needed by everyone – desktop management, email management to run of the mill E-commerce, etc can (and should) be procured through public clouds. Business capital should be expended for IT enhancements that can truly provide a strategic advantage.

3. For most businesses, cloud computing is likely to be less expensive than owning the entire IT infrastructure. However, for companies that are very large, this is not likely to be the case. These largely companies are likely to acquire IT capabilities in bulk or have in-house capabilities because of higher value provided.

Your points are true for many cloud subscribers….it all depends upon their characteristics.

Disclaimer – Treova (http://www.treova.com) is a cloud computing VAR.

According to the DOE:
“Distributed power generators—small, modular electricity generators sited close to customer loads—offer advantages that large-scale, capital-intensive, central-station power plants cannot provide.
By siting smaller, more fuel-flexible systems near energy consumers, distributed generation avoids transmission and distribution power losses and provides a choice of energy systems to the utility customer. Many distributed power systems produce so little noise or emissions that they can be located inside, or immediately adjacent to, the buildings where the power is needed. This greatly simplifies the problems of bringing power to expanding commercial, residential, and industrial areas.
Distributed energy systems offer reliability for U.S. businesses and consumers who need dependable, high-quality power to run sensitive digital equipment and can provide alternative, less-expensive power sources during peak price periods. The potential market for providing power during peak price periods is as high as 460 GW, according to a DOE study.
Distributed power generation technologies use a variety of fuels, including natural gas, diesel, biomass-derived fuels, fuel oil, propane, hydrogen, sunlight, and wind.”

Clouds may still be prices too high for ERP applications, however this could be more cost effective now for office applications, like word processing, spreadsheets…. Finally, no more upgrades of MS Offices every two years for 60 workstations!!!! Taking the money out of Bill’s pocket and putting it in ours!…

@Ophirk, I see the network as an integral portion of any cloud offering. Status quo on WAN is not enough. Latency can be managed if it is deterministic. WAN as dumb pipes won’t work – a smarter network is required. Amazon, Google, Microsoft/Yahoo, Akamai, and perhaps even SUN (should it get its act together or hawked) need to pay attention to the network side sooner rather than later. I believe rapid development on the server/app side has left networking vendors and operators a generation behind.

rohit