Cloud computing is one of the hottest industries right now. There are several companies already offering services like Amazon, Rackspace, Joyent, Slicehost, Gogrid and Aptana.
Today Microsoft launched Azure, a cloud for applications designed for Microsoft Products. Azure is available for free at this time through the CTP program. Pricing will be revealed once the program is available for commercial use.
Considering that Microsoft will be launching a cloud operating system in the future I consider this move very important.
There’s also Mosso and the Sun N1 grid system which kinda did what people are gunning for now, but 5 years ago 🙂 .
Thanks for mentioning them! Mosso is a Rackspace company. Sun N1 is very different than the rest of the services. The infrastructure for cloud computing has been in existence for many years. But only in the last 2 years there has been interest to commercialize this on a level that can be attractive to start-ups. This of course has to do with the fact that successful start-ups grow at a very fast rate and demand much more resources. Animoto for example grew from 50 to 3500 servers in just 3 days! This could not happen in the past with no upfront investment.