Appistry and CloudCamp have announced findings from the first in a series of surveys the two organizations are conducting among CloudCamp participants. The inaugural Appistry/CloudCamp "Inside the Cloud" survey showed Amazon besting Google by a nearly two-to-one margin as the company expected to play the largest role in the future of cloud computing.

SYS-CON's 1st International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo opened on Wednesday, November 19, in San Jose, CA, with standing room only participation by more than 1,200 preregistered confernce delegates

Appistry CEO Kevin Haar will highlight the study on Wednesday, November 19, 2008, as part of a presentation on "Cloud Computing and the Data Center of the Future" at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Conference & Expo 2008 West in San Jose, CA. Appistry chief strategist and co-founder, Bob Lozano, is scheduled to discuss "The New Meaning of Application Virtualization: Cloud-Enabling Applications" on Thursday, November 20, 2008, at the SYS-CON conference.

Through the survey, respondents provided feedback on cloud leadership, market conditions, innovation, challenges to cloud adoption, critical cloud attributes, and relevant cloud applications. Some of the key findings include:

• Amazon bested Google by nearly a two-to-one margin (62 percent to 33 percent) when asked who will play the largest role in the future of cloud computing.
  
• Sixty-six percent of the survey's respondents expect current market conditions to provide fertile ground for cloud computing and expect to see an increase in cloud projects. Fifteen percent predict projects will stall.
  
• Infrastructure and applications (39 percent and 30 percent, respectively) were cited as the areas where the most innovation in cloud computing is happening.
  
• Security, reliability and scalability emerged as the top three challenges to greater adoption of cloud computing.
  
• Respondents ranked cost reduction and increased scalability as the top business drivers for their company's or customers' adoption of cloud computing.

"Amazon has been one of the most aggressive cloud infrastructure providers and the survey findings indicate that people believe it will continue to drive the market," said Sam Charrington, CloudCamp co-organizer and vice president of product management and marketing, Appistry. "It not only received twice as many votes as Google, but the combined percentages of Google, Microsoft and IBM couldn't equal the Amazon believers."

Sixty-one CloudCamp attendees participated in the Appistry/CloudCamp-sponsored survey. Among the respondents, 62 percent represented cloud providers, 24 percent represented cloud consultants, and 20 percent indicated their companies are considering cloud computing technology.

The full study and findings can be downloaded at www.appistry.com/go/inside-the-cloud.