The "Open Cloud Manifesto" proposes rules for cloud computing, including the use of open standards. I found it to be more about "motherhood, apple pie, and open standards," with no concrete anything in the document that would lead to anything of value. In essence it was a mission statement, or, at best, an opinion piece. We have plenty of those already.

This Computer World article, by Robert L. Mitchell highlights the need for SaaS integration.

Actually, I would argue that most on-premise applications still don't talk to one another, even though my integration book, and a bunch of pretty good integration technologies have been around for some time.

For those tasked with maintaining existing IT infrastructure, including major systems and information stores, the subject of SaaS can be a bit scary. Typically they talk about "replacement," and how all things bad will be solved by all things SaaS. Having gone through one IT revolution or another, you know better.

As state, local, and the Federal government look to improve the way they do information systems going forward, clearly the cloud option will be on top of their list. While that's clearly the case now, until recently most government organizations considered cloud computing "politically incorrect," mostly around myths such as "you can't secure it," or "it's proprietary," or "it will cost jobs." None of that is really true when you look at the realities.

So, while you reduce your risk as computing needs go up, you also reduce the risk that you've purchased excess capacity that you don't need. In short, you've outsourced your data center to those who will manage it, keep it healthy, and only charge you for what you use over time. Thus, an organization (such as yours) that is not in business to provide computing resources can sidestep that challenge and transfer the risk to cloud providers that are in the computing resources business.

Indeed, cloud computing represents 25% of the net new growth in IT spending, versus spending for on-premises IT, the article goes on to say. Just SaaS by itself is projected to nearly double from $9 billion to $17 billion.

The big push right now is around interoperability among cloud providers, or the notion of cloud vendors offering built-in communications -- as well as application and data portability -- among suppliers. Core to this concept was a buzzword I've been hearing the last few months, and many times at the event: Intercloud.

Let's take a look at a few major reasons why we'll build private clouds. First, we love to control things and we can't directly control the existing public cloud providers. Second, we may have some special security and legal issues that prevents us from placing our information outside of our firewall. Finally, we can't sell all our existing hardware and software on Craig's List, so we might as well figure out something to do with it.

All good points, but here's some further analysis:

Truth be told, cloud computing is a movie you may have seen years ago called "time sharing," which gave us the ability to share computing resources among many different users. In those days, many companies actually shared a single computer sitting in some data center. Moreover, that computer was able to allocate and manage resources for each user and each application, and the user could request more computing time, or less, adjusting their use of the time-sharing service. It's how I started my career, and most people in their 40s or older remember those days well.

However, in moving to cloud computing, it's also clear that not all information systems are good candidates to run in the clouds. Indeed, those charged with reducing costs and moving to a cloud computing platform are well advised to spend some time understanding their own systems before pushing them outside of the firewall, to sometimes disastrous results.

Here are a few things to consider:

First, it doesn't matter if you understand the differences between Myspace and Facebook. Most of the people who work in your enterprises, IT or not, use some sort of social networking system, and most look at it at least once a day during work hours. While I assume you could put your foot down and declare this stuff against policy, I'm certain most employees would find that a bit too "Big Brother," and find a way to do it anyway, perhaps on their iPhones and Blackberries. So, social networking in the workplace is a fact of life you must deal with.

I have no issue with IBM driving into the world of cloud computing — I figured it would. But just think about the larger hardware and software players — such as IBM and Microsoft, who are now moving toward the cloud — and the potential conflicts that could occur. In essence, your cable TV provider is offering to show you how to move to Satellite TV.