VMware has started to speak on cloud. In an article published Thursday at Virtual-Strategy, entitled "Where Virtualization Meets the Cloud", VMware Director of Product Marketing for Cloud Computing, Wendy Perilli, gives some of VMware's view.

Cloud computing is essentially the ability to acquire or deliver a resource on demand, configured however the users choose, and paid for according to consumption. From a supplier's perspective, including both internal IT groups and service providers, it means being able to deliver and manage resource pools and applications in a multi-tenancy environment, to deliver the user an on-demand, pay-per-use service. A cloud service can be infrastructure for hosting applications or data storage, a development platform, or even an application that you can get on-demand, either off-site at a provider, such as SunGard or Salesforce, or built onsite within IT. [emphasis added]

There you have it, a nice short definition from VMware. There is no new insights into internal or private clouds, they are mentioned but not detailed. The main thrust is that virtualisation enables the cloud, delivering the answer to the "so whats changed" question from the older days of the xSP models.

Its a soft start, but I suspect its written for a certain audience. Great to see materials coming out from VMware because as I commented a short while ago, everyone else is talking cloud whilst VMware have been whispering.

Rodos