On Thursday at the SpringOne 2GX developer conference, VMware announced with Google the general availability of the first in a series of technology collaborations to make enterprise software developers more efficient at building, deploying and managing applications within any cloud environment on any device. The collaborative projects that will be available in the next two weeks include Spring Roo and Google Web Toolkit; Spring Insight and Google Speed Tracer; and SpringSource Tool.

"Together, Google and VMware enable enterprises to develop and deploy rich Spring Java applications across multiple clouds and devices," said Rod Johnson, SVP, application platform division at VMware. "Today we have reached an important milestone where these modern applications can run smoothly within the firewalls of a company's production datacentre or in a trusted provider's cloud environment."

The general availability of these projects represents the first in a series of technology collaborations to enhance cloud portability across multiple clouds and devices. The next collaboration projects will focus on even broader mobile application support and accessing data in the cloud, as demonstrated today by the ability to deploy a SQL-based Spring application on Google App Engine for Business.

"Developers are looking for faster ways to build and run great web applications, and businesses want platforms that are open and flexible," said Vic Gundotra, Google vice president of developer platforms. "By making deployments of Spring Java applications on Google App Engine using Google Web Toolkit generally available, developers can deploy Java applications in production environments of their choice while leveraging rich web front-end across multiple devices."

In searching for coverage from VMworld in San Jose, I came across this press release...

Wyse Unveils Expanded Strategy for Cloud Client Computing, Mobile Cloud Business Unit

Thin, Zero, and Cloud PC Client Offerings Combined with Integrated Management, Desktop Virtualization and Cloud Software Delivering the Most Complete and Secure Unified Communications Platform for True Cloud Computing

Mobile Cloud Business Unit to Focus on Management, Desktop Virtualization and Cloud Software on Next Generation Mobile Platforms

Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Red Hat, and VMware also rank high up on a survey by IT consulting firm BTC Logic

Amazon and IBM are the "cloud champions" according to a new report, but Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Red Hat, and VMware are also among the list of heavyweights in the emerging cloud computing field.

All tech vendors are embracing the cloud. Even those that don't provide public cloud services are fighting to become the top builders of infrastructures to support emerging cloud networks.

A new quarterly report from BTC Logic, an IT consulting firm, attempts to rank the top cloud players, and puts them into seven broad categories: cloud foundations, infrastructure, network services, platforms, applications, security and management.

SAN FRANCISCO — This year, Netflix made what looked like a peculiar choice: the DVD-by-mail company decided that over the next two years, it would move most of its Web technology — customer movie queues, search tools and the like — over to the computer servers of one of its chief rivals, Amazon.com.

Amazon, like Netflix, wants to deliver movies to people’s homes over the Internet. But the online retailer, based in Seattle, has lately gained traction with a considerably more ambitious effort: the business of renting other companies the remote use of its technology infrastructure so they can run their computer operations. In the parlance of technophiles, they would operate “in the cloud.”

 from Reuven Cohen on ElasticVapor:  Life in the Cloud

Ok, I admit it. At first I didn't have a clue what the point of VMware's new "Get it off the Board Agenda" site had to do with promoting cloud adoption. In a nutshell VMware has created a new viral marketing campaign geared toward the idea of keeping executives out of the decision process for buying cloud related services. But why? Doesn't this seem somewhat counter productive, or does it?

First I suppose you need to get into the head of who's buying cloud products and services today. For service providers and telco's this probably means an SVP of some sort has been given the job of defining a revenue generating cloud strategy and service offering, so I'm not sure if this person would be the target for the campaign.

It's probably more likely geared toward the end customers, the customers of my customers if you will. The Google's, Amazons, Salesforce and Microsoft's style clouds and how they're being adopted. The random developer or business unit with a problem to solve. The classic "New York Times" cloud story comes to mind. The story goes something like this, Derek Gottfrid, random NYT programmer had to solve a very hard problem with no time or money. So without prior permission he goes to Amazon Web Services where he leverages the power of EC2 and the free open source Hadoop project. With in a few hours he is able build a cloud application to utilize hundreds of machines concurrently and process a 150 years worth of data in less than 36 hours at next to no cost. Yup, it's called bottom up adoption.

So what is VMware promoting you ask? Bottom up user innovation and frictionless IT procurement policies. Instead of putting up road blocks to innovation VMware is saying empower your employees by giving them self service tools that allow them to do things never possible before. Personally, I think the board room angle may be a little off, but generally I think they are on the right track.