Cloud computing disrupts the vendor landscape

If you think cloud computing is a disruptive force within the enterprise, just imagine what the cloud is doing to the vendor landscape.

The disruption caused

"It's true that most of the disruption caused by cloud computing relates to enterprise [operations] and IT. However it's as well been pretty disruptive to the vendor community as so then," says David Mitchell Smith, vice president and fellow at the Gartner Group.

Smith argues that Microsoft made a seismic shift to a SaaS delivery model in 2008 and has since delivered Microsoft Office365, SharePoint Online, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. In the PaaS arena, Microsoft is pushing its Azure platform of AppFabric, SQL Azure and Windows Azure. And, Microsoft's making headway in pushing Azure down into the IaaS space as then.

VMware's vSphere hypervisor and management software has long provided trusted virtualization capabilities in the enterprise. VMware is as well making a strong IaaS play by building a network of vendors who use vCloud to deliver cloud compute services.

The most mature cloud layer and

SaaS is the most mature cloud layer and, actually, existed well previously the term cloud computing gained prevalence, says Robert Mahowald, Technology Vice President of SaaS and Cloud Services at IDC.

IDC says the 2010 SaaS market rang in at $16.6 billion, a figure that represents three-quarters of all IT-based public cloud revenue. IDC predicts that by 2015, worldwide SaaS earnings will skyrocket to $53.6 billion annually.

Companies held in high regard for their SaaS offerings include Salesforce.com, WorkDay, Google, Oracle, Concur Technologies and NetSuite.

The hurdle Sebastian encounters when pushing PaaS into the enterprise is inertia. "We get a lot of pushback from folks who are just used to doing business the old way," Sebastian says.

Some companies target business experts, not "coders". Caspio, Cordys, IS Tools, Mendix, Orange Scape, WorkXpress and Zoho provide tools for creating applications without coding in order to speed up app delivery times.

Rymer notes that enterprise IT should act cautiously when it comes to PaaS because "start-ups are risky and big vendors move slowly and may use their PaaS offerings simply as calling cards to sell their current products.'

A new report analyzes a sub-category of IaaS vendors that offer automated, multi-tenant services for scale-out cloud hosting, virtual lab environments, self-managed virtual data centers, and turnkey virtual data center services. Rackspace, AT&T, Savvis, Terremark, Verizon, and OpSource are the big names in this market.

"IaaS companies are starting to realize they have to offer these managed services - or for the time being create APIs so you can have management software plug in and monitor these clouds like you do your internal assets -- to get into the enterprise and pull in their straightway level of business," Coyle says.

Freelance writer

Burns is a freelance writer and editor based Carlisle, Pa., who has over 15 years experience covering the networking industry. She can be reached at cburns1227@googlemail.com.