Introducing Company Profiles: Highlighting Today's Cloud Computing Leaders

When we began talking about creating a website dedicated to cloud computing, we looked at many other online publications, including blogs, to see how they approached the subject. Obviously, we found a lot of great content out there, many of them offering news, articles and opinions, and we wanted to bring our own unique viewpoint and style to those editorial areas.

However, we also felt it would be interesting and worthwhile to focus on the providers of cloud computing services and organize them across the three main pillars of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). The hope was we could provide business' and IT professionals a snapshot of the cloud computing landscape based on the companies actually delivering these new on-demand services.

In short, we felt because cloud computing offered so much promise, and admittedly quite a bit of hype, it would be valuable and instructive to see these vendors the context of the entire landscape, as well as within their given pillar - that is, to see which providers actually deliver infrastructure services, platform services, and/or software services - to get a feel for the breadth and depth of the solutions that could be accessed and delivered over the Web. We also wanted to make it easy to see who these vendors were by using common categories and adding tags that would further define their service or area of expertise.

For example, if you were interested in IaaS, you could dig deeper by selecting those providers that deliver raw compute or storage capacity from the ones that provide software for cloud management. Or, if you were interested in SaaS - which is really quite broad - you’d be able to easily distinguish between those delivering security management solutions and the ubiquitous customer relationship management providers.

As a result, we developed the Company Profiles area of our website. The pillars of Infrastructure, Platform, and Software organize the section, so you can quickly see all the vendors and which areas of cloud computing they cover (in some cases, a vendor may be in more than one category). By utilizing the tags, you can further refine your search to hone in on a specific area, such as Application Services or Application Management. And, to make certain we're speaking the same language, we've even provided a handy definitions page you can easily get to from any of the profiles.

The profiles are organized into two sections: "Main" and "Check It Out."

In the "Main" section, we cover the nuts and bolts of the provider.

• Overview: a brief introduction of the company and the products they offer.
• Value Proposition: a description of the value add the vendor offers end-user organizations; this can include data from the provider on things, such as ROI, or what makes them unique in their given category.
• Products and Services: a complete list with short descriptions of the provider's products and services (with links where appropriate).
• Reference Center: a selection of the provider's featured and most useful content, including videos, podcasts, data sheets, white papers, and related articles.

In the "Check It Out" section, we give you highlights behind the company.

• Intro: a short description about the provider and their services.
• Customers: a list of the vendor's key customers; in some cases, vendors have an extensive customer list - we simply provide a snapshot of them.
• Contact: the basics - telephone, email, and company URL.
• Get Started: typically, providers have a special offer or way to engage with them directly through some time-bound "free" offer.

So, there you have it! The Company Profiles section of our website is dedicated to highlighting the best, most innovative and successful cloud computing providers there is. It's a convenient place to find information about cloud providers organized by cloud category with a refined search capability based on tags. We believe it'll give you a logical way to compare and contrast vendors, as well as demonstrate the breadth and depth of the cloud computing landscape. Plus, it'll continue to evolve with additional providers added each week - and most importantly, with comments and suggestions from you! So, let us know what you think because this resource is for you.