Market Momentum: Compute-As-A-Service, 2008 And 2009

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.