This post was written by Mulah Johnson
Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud isn’t abstract – it’s real and impressive. EC2 enables any developer to leverage Amazon’s own benefits of massive scale with no up-front investment or performance compromises. Being elastic it instantly responds unexpectedly changing computing requirements. EC2 security groups make it very simple to partition your application environment at no additional cost. With EC2 security groups, you can completely isolate every tier, even internally to the cloud. Based on Xen EC2 security relies on VM isolation. There is still a possibility that Xen has security holes that would allow inter-VM communication.
Zoho CloudSQL is the first technology that allows customers to interact with their data on the cloud, from another cloud application or from an on-premises one through real SQL. You can think of CloudSQL as a linking mechanism for things like QuickBooks or any application that wants to talk to and from Zoho data. Despite being so confident on services, Zoho didn’t go for a wider distribution and a better promotion. But one thing is for sure, it has every potential to offer us with a richer experience.
Cloud Computing: Web-Based Applications That Change the Way You Work and Collaborate Online 
Apple is expected to unveil a new suite of web-based applications that play off of iWork. They will primarily be extensions of their desktop counterparts not replacements. As Weintraub notes, the entire iWork suite that Apple currently offers, including iMovie, will be given core functionality additions online. The iWork Cloud, and mobile access through devices like the iPhone and iPod touch. Many people believe cloud services are the future of computing, but Apple’s official foray into the modern world of cloud based services, Mobile Me, didn’t paint the concept in a very positive light.
Citrix Systems is looking toward 2009 as the year that its vision for cloud computing and desktop virtualization will come into much sharper focus, with product suites that allow enterprises to build new types of virtual infrastructures. Citrix plans to offer new software suites that will give enterprises the tools to build their own internal cloud computing infrastructures as well as allow businesses to tap into external clouds that are built using Citrix technology. That vision dovetails with Citrix’s virtual desktop and server virtualization offerings built around its 2007 acquisition of XenSource.
SOASTA solutions has announced an alliance with Savvis, Inc. The alliance will give Savvis customers a state-of-the-art, on-demand testing service in the Cloud, enabling affordable, highly scalable load and performance testing of web applications and services. The new “virtual test lab” will be offered as part of Savvis’ new SaaS hosting platform and enablement services. For those Savvis customers preferring to test inside the firewall, SOASTA also offers a variety of virtual and hardware appliances with seamless upgrade to hours in the Cloud.
Q-layer, the leading enabler of cloud computing through Virtual Private Data Centers (VPDC), today announced that it has expanded its operation into the United States. Founded in 2005 in Belgium, the company has experienced great success in the European market with the Virtual Private Data Center software targeted at Service Providers.
Salesforce.com has unveiled Force.com Checkout, a new set of services to accelerate customer and partner success with buying and selling enterprise cloud computing applications. Customers can use Force.com Checkout as a single source for finding, trying, buying and deploying salesforce.com applications and partner-built Force.com applications via the Force.com AppExchange. Together, the Force.com platform, AppExchange and Checkout offers a comprehensive set of services for developers and partners to build and sell native Force.com applications with unprecedented ease and speed.