by Frank E. Gillett – analyst at Forrester Research
with Reedwan Iqbal, Ellen Daley
December 28, 2009
Price: US $499
THIS IS AN EXCERPT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
To measure and compare market activity for compute-as-a-service offerings, Forrester tracked 536 public announcements of 14 leading compute-as-a-service providers from Q1 2008 to Q3 2009 across four high-level categories. Given the strong cloud hype, it’s no surprise that we found that market momentum is strong, with Amazon.com as the one clear leader; that service announcements are the highest focus and not changes to go-to-market strategy; and that small providers are trying to establish brand credibility. Vendor strategists doing strategic marketing for compute-as-a-service need to be judicious about what announcements to release, focusing on real solutions and real-value benefits for customers just learning about compute-as-a-service — ideally in the form of hard numbers with a case study.