Cutting edge

The San Francisco Chronicle has an on-line article by Deborah Gage about 'cloud computing':

Leaping onstage with characteristic showmanship, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff used his keynote address to outline a series of alliances between his San Francisco "cloud computing" company and some of the biggest brands in the country - Starbucks, Amazon, Facebook, Harrah's casinos in Las Vegas. Salesforce.com has specialized in software that runs corporate sales and marketing programs over the Internet, but it's branching out. According to Benioff, it's now possible for any developer to write software for Salesforce.com that also runs on the public Web. "It's time for you to change how you think of our company and what we can do for you," Benioff said.
Cloud computing, as the software delivery method is known, isn't as seamless as Benioff makes it out to be, though. Startups are springing up to help solve various technical problems that need to be worked out, and cloud computing has big implications for privacy, security, pricing of software, and many other issues.
"We're better positioned than most companies to understand these issues, but it's not for the faint of heart or for those not able to invest," said Dan'l Lewin, a corporate vice president at Microsoft, which announced its own cloud computing strategy in Los Angeles last week. "We don't have all the answers."

Rico says he bought into the MobileMe 'cloud' that Apple is running, and thinks it's a hell of an idea; he gets cross-fertilization between his iPhone and his desktop Mac, and if he ever gets a laptop, that, too. (And what is blogging itself, if not cloud computing?)