@Mathias Pfuetzner

So, you liked the Cool-Aid so much you posted the same thing twice ?

Must taste real good then !

But tell me, don't you think Google is a bit of an exception as far as cloud computing is concerned ? I mean, is there any other company that has anything even close to what Google has as far as data-crunching is concerned ? I don't think so.

As for the rest of your arguments, you sidestep nicely the question of confidentiality. Banks are not going to use the cloud for anything and you know that. I'll wager that most companies will keep the mission-critical apps in-house as well because, you know, there's that liability thing that keeps cropping up now and then. And there's already enough trouble with loss of customer data as it is, no need to add cloud hacking to the mix.

In short, I really don't see how this new fad is going to go anywhere farther than it already is. Remote hosting is an old idea, and there are domains where it can be used advantageously - I believe those domains are already well-known and the services already available.

This cloud thingy strikes me as just another train for the Web 2.0 crowd to milk as far as they can, nothing more.