We believe that the hybrid cloud is the future of all cloud computing, and will allow each customer to find the best solution for its unique needs. So we were naturally interested to see our view confirmed in RightScale’s 2013 State of the Cloud Survey.

RightScale, a long-time Rackspace partner, recently polled 625 IT and business leaders and found that business of all sizes plan to adopt hybrid cloud infrastructure. The numbers in favor of this strategy are staggering: more than 75 percent of larger organizations have a multi-cloud strategy, with the majority of those planning for hybrid clouds. Of that group, 15 percent plan to use multiple public clouds; 15 percent plan to use multiple private clouds; and 47 percent will turn to hybrid cloud arrangements.

This survey shows that customers no longer want a provider who pretends that one cloud fits all. Instead, we believe, there will be millions of clouds – public, private, dedicated and hybrid – all built to deliver the best fit for a customer’s specific needs.

The hybrid cloud offers the best of all worlds. It allows you to blend the best of the public cloud with private cloud and bare metal servers into one common architecture. The hybrid cloud provides the best possible combination of cost-efficiency, security, reliability, performance and control. There are no tradeoffs in the hybrid cloud.

Hybrid cloud deployments also let you increase your ROI on existing IT investments while giving you faster access to infrastructure and greater scalability.

And it’s openness that makes this vision a reality. With our OpenStack cloud, we enable your workloads to move among the public cloud, private cloud and dedicated hardware at your convenience. You might, for instance, launch an app in the public cloud and then, when it scales, move it to a private cloud for superior cost-effectiveness and control. It’s about what’s right for your app, not what’s right for our cloud. We adapt to your needs, rather than insisting that you architect your apps to fit a proprietary cloud that locks you in. The OpenStack open source platform that we founded provides the springboard to easily move workloads as they outgrow a specific environment. And if you determine that you require the control and compliance advantages of a private cloud, we can help cut the deployment time by hosting it for you or helping you manage it in your own facilities, with Rackspace Private Cloud.

Customers are voting with their feet as well as with their survey responses. According to RightScale, 29 percent already run apps in hybrid environments; 38 percent in private clouds; and 61 percent in public clouds. We expect these numbers to shift as companies build out their infrastructures to better accommodate and scale to their specific needs.

But what’s clear is that customers are finding real value by integrating private cloud, public cloud and dedicated computing.

With the hybrid cloud, you can have your cake and eat it too.

These startups, while all working on different products and projects, have one thing in common: Rackspace and Open Cloud technologies make their lives easier. Here are five reasons startups love the Rackspace Open Cloud.

1. Startups Love Open Source

It’s no secret that startups thrive in dynamic environments. They like being a part of something – a community. Startups have a track-record for choosing open source platforms upon which to build their businesses – they build on Linux, MySQL, Apache, OpenStack and more. They crave the freedom, the choice, the flexibility and the customizability that open standards and open source offer. Bootstrapped startups can’t afford to pay the commercial software tax – they need that money to grow their businesses. At their core, startups are innovators. They are constantly creating and inventing. Open source tools like OpenStack and Linux are where invention happens. They fuel innovation – and startups know this.

2. Startups Want To Focus On Their Businesses

The entrepreneurial spirit can’t be dampened – but constant worry about infrastructure needs and day-to-day IT management can stifle innovation and act as a speed bump. The Open Cloud sparks innovation and removes the burden of “keeping the lights on.” You don’t have to have the world’s best engineering team – unless your product requires it, that is. Most startups I interact with have two leaders: the technical guy and the business guy, neither of which should be saddled with managing infrastructure. The cloud ought to fade into the background. The last thing they need to focus on is the technology stack. Rackspace specifically gives its startup customers the safety net of our years of experience, our expertise in running clouds and our Fanatical Support®. We’re an extension of your team that is there to run your cloud so you can build your business. As startups gear up for SXSW Interactive in Austin next week, we want to help ensure that they’re ready for success. To do so, we’ve put together tips for startups to steer toward SXSW success and we are available today to field any questions you may have (1-800-480-3163).

3. We Can Relate, We Were A Startup (And Still Act Like One)

It wasn’t that long ago that Rackspace was a scrappy startup. In fact, the bulk of our leadership team was with the company in those early days when we were just a handful of employees crammed into a small office. We’ve been through it, and we still think like a startup. We’re your peers; your contemporaries, and we know the challenges you face. At the same time, startups are our bread and butter – we know what makes them tick. We’ve grown over the years and now have a strong enterprise business as well, but that startup mentality will forever be in our blood. Our Open Cloud can help startups grow and evolve, much like we did, while maintaining the spirit that drives the startup movement.

4. Startups Want Choice And Flexibility

This may be the most important – startups want choice. They need to be nimble. Flexibility is a must. In the fast-paced startup world, you have to be able to pivot on a dime. That’s not so simple when you’re locked into a proprietary cloud vendor. The Open Cloud gives startups the ability to not only scale as they grow, but also leave their cloud provider should their needs change or evolve. Maybe a private cloud is the right choice at some stage. The startup world is unpredictable – the Open Cloud is assurance that when things change, your business can too. You can grow without drag.

5. The Open Cloud Loves Startups Too

Startups love the Open Cloud because we love them back. With our Rackspace Startup Program we help young companies embrace the cloud through free and discounted cloud resources. We have a team of experienced Rackers – Robert Scoble, for example – who are startup evangelists. We invest in startups and we bring them into our world. We act as a tailwind for startups to help them get to success faster, and do so in an Open Cloud environment.

BONUS

6. The Open Cloud Has Better T-Shirts

Let’s face it – startups love schwag. We all do. Nothing beats free stuff. And here at Rackspace we love seeing our logo, slogans and images being worn by entrepreneurs and startups. We put a lot of thought in getting our name out there – and the Open Cloud just lends itself to some really cool designs. Take a look. And find us at a tradeshow to get in on the fun.

And here’s a look at L.A.’s startup movement:

We recently polled 1,300 companies in the U.S. and the UK and found that the cloud has reduced the total IT costs for a whopping 88 percent of cloud users, while 56 percent say that using cloud has helped them increase profits – money that’s being pumped back into businesses and driving innovation.

Our research revealed that among the companies saving money in the cloud, 62 percent say they can invest that savings back into their businesses to boost headcount and wages and drive innovation. Additionally, 49 percent of organizations said cloud computing has empowered them to grow their businesses; and 60 percent say that the cloud reduced the need for their IT team to maintain infrastructure – or focus on “keeping the lights on” – and allowed them to spend more time focusing on the business, strategy and innovation.

While that is great news, it’s even better to see that the U.S. is leading the way in the deployment of the open cloud, with 70 percent of U.S. respondents noting that they’re using open cloud technologies. Additionally, 74 percent of U.S. organizations see their use of open clouds increasing and 86 percent said open standards improve their ability to innovate.

These survey results confirm the importance of the open cloud and how it is helping companies of all sizes not only save money, but innovate and grow their businesses for the future.

Dive deeper into the survey results and learn more about the open cloud here: http://www.rackspace.co.uk/economic-impact-cloud-computing/

As we look ahead to 2013, the cloud computing market is yet again undergoing a major shift. OpenStack will become THE open source cloud platform. Big Data will also be a huge topic of discussion, as will the massive explosion in the number of connected devices.

Here are my cloud predictions (in no particular order) for 2013:

OpenStack Innovation Grows

Last year was just the beginning for OpenStack. Today there are more than 6,000 contributing developers with 850 organizations participating in the initiative. The OpenStack community has grown to include marquee technology companies like EMC and VMware. And 2013 is where OpenStack will really hit its stride. At Rackspace, we launched our open cloud built on OpenStack this year. Next year, the innovation around OpenStack will continue to rapidly expand; at Rackspace and dozens of other cloud providers. More companies and individuals will be involved in making OpenStack the true Linux of the cloud. OpenStack sparked a revolution in 2012, and that torch will be carried through 2013 as openness becomes one of the main tenets of cloud computing.

Year Of Big Data

This is the year when Big Data makes its way into enterprise conversations. Gartner predicts that Big Data will drive $232 billion in IT spending through 2016. Companies will begin looking for ways to leverage Big Data solutions to create business value and a competitive advantage. For example, more companies will implement Big Data solutions to help analyze website traffic and to gain a deeper understanding of their customer base by identifying key trends in online viewing and purchasing behaviors. As the interest in Big Data increases, so too will the realization that these solutions are complicated and difficult to deploy. As a result, there will be a big initial focus on looking for ways to take the time and complexity out of Big Data implementations.

Internet Of Things

The PC used to be the center of the universe. But now there are myriad devices and the PC is only one of many. In fact, now it’s becoming more of an Internet of things as opposed to an Internet of people. How many of our devices will have no screen and automatically do things on behalf of humans? The vast majority is my guess. These devices will include electric meters, sensors, surveillance cameras, cars, etc. Everything we have will be connected. The power meter in your home that’s connected to the smart grid will constantly stream and store data in the cloud. The camera with Wi-Fi that streams photos will be connected to the cloud via Wi-Fi or 4G. Everything will have a connection to cloud services, as the cloud is the backend that makes it all possible.

This Internet of things also means the cloud is more important than ever. The cloud provides the central hub for all of these devices, as well as context about the user that can be tapped into and shared to make the product or service better. The cloud is also where the analytical data from all of these “things” is processed and stored, which again speaks to how important Big Data solutions will be in the year ahead.

Disaster Recovery Gets Cloudy

Whether it’s the catastrophic Tsunami in Japan, the deadly tornado outbreaks throughout the Mid-West or the devastating hurricane that just hit the East Coast, companies are being challenged to figure out how to maintain business operations in the midst of natural disasters. It’s happening more frequently and it’s a trend that will likely continue in the year ahead. The cloud will help these companies respond more quickly. The frictionless nature of moving workloads between clouds in the face of a disaster is huge, as it gives companies the flexibility they need to adapt. The cloud will be a key component of disaster recovery plans moving forward.

SSD Comes To The Cloud

We started to see this trend evolve in late 2012, but in 2013 companies will use SSDs for their cloud storage needs at an increasing rate. SSDs will be embedded into more devices, laptops and data centers. While standard drives for storage will continue to be used, SSDs will offer a higher performance option that is fast, super low energy and contain no moving parts. As more SSDs are used, costs will come down and create a virtuous cycle. This cycle will kick off in 2013, as we will begin to see many more options for SSD in the cloud.

Broader IT Skill Sets Required

As the tech industry continues its shift towards cloud computing and companies continue to implement public, private and hybrid clouds at an increasing rate, the typical IT manager, system administrator and even the CIO will soon be forced to develop a much broader skill set. This trend will help create a new job market that is ripe for those who have a generalized skill set including potentially a developer background – think DevOps — vs. deep experience within a single specialized area.

The ubiquity of networked devices is just the beginning. It’s no longer just servers, computers and smartphones that are accessing the cloud. There is a cadre of connected devices: washers, dryers, coffee makers — you name it — that access cloud resources. The number of connected devices is staggering, and we’re really just at the start.

During my keynote presentation at Cloud Expo in Santa Clara, Calif. today, I shared some data from Cisco that shows there will be 50 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2020. I also pointed to research that indicates that the Internet will double in size every 5.32 years.

Consumers are already there. They’re in the cloud. And the enterprise is being pulled there. Cisco estimated that this year roughly 70 percent of all enterprises will leverage enterprise-class cloud technologies.

Enterprises are now charged with building their businesses on the cloud. It’s no longer a question of if the cloud can help your business. Rather, in this new era the cloud will be your business.

Consider the number of new businesses that wouldn’t, or couldn’t, exist without the cloud: YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and a host of other game-changing companies that have their entire business model contingent on being in the cloud.

Take Rackspace customer gdgt, for example. Gdgt’s business relies on the cloud. With its live blog of Apple’s iPhone 5 announcement, gdgt drew 55 million page views from around the globe. That blog couldn’t exist if it hadn’t been for the cloud.

Let’s look at current events. During Superstorm Sandy last week, there was an estimated 10 photos per second uploaded to Instagram with the #Sandy hashtag. People turned to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for storm information and to stay connected with loved ones.

And today’s presidential election will be no different. Voters will rely on social media powered by the cloud for up-to-the-second election information. According to eMarketer, in the four years since the last presidential election, social media has become a dominant force. During the 2008 election, Facebook had 44 million users in the U.S. who were of legal voting age, while Twitter had 3.4 million. Fast-forward to today, and the number of U.S.-based users who are 18 and older has exceeded 143 million for Facebook and 24 million for Twitter. Social media is now an incredibly powerful medium and it couldn’t exist without the cloud.

The cloud is now the primary language for how the world communicates. And we think everyone has a right to speak that language and for their voice to be heard.

This dramatic shift to the cloud emphasizes the importance of choice. You don’t want lock-in. You don’t want a single, proprietary vendor for your cloud environment. The cloud is a democratizing technology and we should all have access to it. That said, we should also all have a stake in it and a role to play within it.

Much like the Internet evolved in the open and from open source technologies; so too must the cloud. That’s why we built our cloud on OpenStack and why we’re leveraging OpenStack to power our cloud products: Cloud Files, Cloud Servers, Cloud Databases, Cloud Networks and Cloud Block Storage. We’ve launched an OpenStack-powered private cloud that runs the same software as our public cloud. And we’ve done all of this out in the open, with input from a community of roughly 6,000 contributing developers and 850 organizations.

As the cloud officially becomes the way the world communicates, much like the telephone network just decades ago, we have to level the playing field. Everyone has a right to the cloud. Modern business models won’t work without it. It’s now a requirement.

The pace of innovation has made it certain that in order to survive all companies must become cloud companies. And do those companies want to be beholden to closed proprietary systems? I say no.

So the question really isn’t: will you be a cloud company? The question is: will you be an open cloud company?

But here we are two years later. OpenStack now powers the world’s second-largest public cloud — the one we run at Rackspace — and the OpenStack community continues to grow and thrive. It now comprises 192 companies including HP, IBM and Dell and 5,564 technologists, developers, researchers, and other cloud computing experts.

OpenStack is sparking an open cloud revolution, and it’s noticeable here at Cloud Connect Chicago, where I just gave the keynote presentation. The attendees get it. In the halls, on the expo floor and in the sessions, vendor lock-in is a common topic of conversation, and a major concern. They don’t want to be tied to a single cloud provider. They’ve grown weary of the excuses of closed, proprietary cloud vendors.

As I said on stage, we’ve never liked the idea of lock-in. It violates the longstanding Rackspace emphasis on putting the customer first.  It’s one of the main things that drove us to team up with NASA to build and launch OpenStack.

And with OpenStack and our growing suite of open cloud products – Cloud Servers, Cloud Files, Cloud Databases, Private Cloud and (coming soon) Cloud Networks and Cloud Block Storage – you can now leverage the power of the open cloud in your own environment. It’s a huge achievement for us and for our customers, as we’ve gone all in with OpenStack as the engine that drives our public cloud. But this move has a bigger impact beyond just Rackspace. It paves the way for technology democratization and is helping to build the foundation of standards in the cloud computing industry.

But what about companies and individuals that want the agility and flexibility of a cloud environment, but with the same control and privacy they had with their on-premise infrastructure?

This is the best part: we’re offering them OpenStack-based Private Cloud Software for free. The software, dubbed “Alamo,” is available through a quick and easy download and offers the ability to spin up an OpenStack-powered private cloud in less than an hour. Imagine that. Bare metal to a private cloud in less time than an episode of Law & Order – and it’s free.

My ask of you today is that you download the Rackspace Private Cloud Software powered by OpenStack. Give it a test drive. You’ll find it’s the easiest way to use and consume OpenStack.

Offering free Private Cloud Software is just another example of our open cloud dreams coming true. What started with a wouldn’t-it-be-cool-if discussion with NASA has evolved into a full-fledged open cloud revolution.

Join us on the journey to the open cloud and take the Rackspace Private Cloud Software for a spin. And let me know what you think: jengates@rackspace.com

But over the last 13-plus years Rackspace has grown, and so has Texas as a haven for tech. This week, CNBC took notice, ranking the Lone Star State as No. 2 in the country for technology and innovation in its special report “America’s Top States For Business 2012.” Texas was edged out only by New York, which captured No. 1 in the tech and innovation category. Texas beat out California, Massachusetts and other tech-savvy states.

“Succeeding in the new economy — or any economy — takes innovation,” CNBC wrote. “The top states for business prize innovation, nurture new ideas, and have the infrastructure to support them. We evaluated the states on their support for innovation, the number of patents issued to their residents, and the deployment of broadband services. We also considered federal health and science research grants to the states.”

Rackspace is instrumental in helping Texas flex its technology and innovation muscles. We bring top tech talent to our various Texas locations: our San Antonio headquarters, aka, The Castle; our Austin office; and our Texas-based data centers. We’ve made Texas the nerve center of our trademark Fanatical Support and the home of the Open Cloud. We build products and services here that are not only innovative, but also help fuel innovation.

And tech and innovation isn’t the only place Texas shined. Overall, CNBC honored Texas as the No. 1 state for business in 2012.

In the sixth annual “America’s Top States For Business” study, CNBC scored all 50 states on 43 different measures of competitiveness developed with input from business groups including the National Association of Manufacturers and the Council on Competitiveness. From there, those scores were broken into 10 categories in which each state was ranked: cost of doing business, workforce, quality of life, economy, transportation and infrastructure, technology and innovation, education, business friendliness, access to capital and cost of living.

Texas racked up a whopping 1,604 points out of a possible 2,500 with finishes in the top 10 of six of the 10 categories of competitiveness. It’s also worth pointing out that Texas has never finished below second place since CNBC began the study in 2007.

Not only did Texas take the No. 2 spot in technology and innovation, but it also nabbed No. 1 for infrastructure and transportation; No. 3 for cost of living; No. 4 for economy; and No. 7 for workforce. Texas also placed No. 12 for business friendliness.

Texas has truly established itself as a center for business, and a destination for technology and innovation; and we at Rackspace couldn’t be happier.

That makes this a good time for a shout-out to NASA, whose contributions, through the Nebula initiative, helped OpenStack achieve lift off.

OpenStack now is in orbit. The community has swelled. Support for it is vast. And production OpenStack environments have emerged. It’s only natural that NASA’s role now is shifting, from founder to customer of OpenStack and other cloud platforms. NASA is handing the reins over to the OpenStack community, including Rackspace — a move that is winning praise from industry analysts.

Like former NASA cloud architect and founder of OpenStack startup Piston Computing Joshua McKenty said, “NASA never stopped using space pens or aluminum foil — but they did stop investing in R&D and manufacturing of those items, once there were commercial entities engaged.”

As NASA continues to explore the many uses of cloud computing and looks to be a “smart consumer” of commercial cloud services, we’re confident OpenStack will be a mainstay. While NASA may not be a core participant in OpenStack development, it has made clear that it already has OpenStack projects in the works as it move to fulfill the federal mandate for agencies to make broader use of cloud computing.

OpenStack, like cloud computing in general, remains a work in progress. This isn’t the end of the journey; it’s just the beginning as we head toward the era of the Open Cloud.

NASA has helped to set the stage and build OpenStack from the ground up. The technology that it helped to develop launched the Open Cloud revolution. Now it’s up to us at Rackspace, and the rest of the OpenStack community, to build on its momentum.

Through OpenStack and our Open Cloud we’re looking to create true choice in the public cloud, and in August, OpenStack will be the engine of Rackspace’s public cloud. NASA and other agencies will have plenty of options for public cloud services from Rackspace and a host of others.

None of this would’ve been possible without NASA’s early participation in OpenStack, for which all cloud users should be grateful.

Cloud computing doesn’t just free IT from day-to-day on-site maintenance and enable it to focus on value-add versus maintaining the status quo, it also takes some of the burden of creating applications off of IT’s shoulders, further removing the constraints on an on-premise model.

Another benefit is that the cloud offers more transparency into the consumption of computing resources than on-premise architectures, which makes it easier to see who is using what resources and gain an understanding of usage patterns.

On-premise models often limit the flexibility to roll out new services; make it difficult to find time to develop new, value-added applications due to focusing on fixing current apps and tending to other problems; and require added time to manage contracts with providers and maintain software and hardware.

A cloud computing model, however, removes these hurdles, enabling IT to focus on co-innovating with business users and build applications and solutions that differentiate an enterprise, which ultimately adds real value.

Managing a complex application portfolio is several orders of magnitude easier in the cloud. Applications can be deployed more quickly and more easily because the cloud removes the need to apportion and manage on-premise resources. The result is a reduction in the cost to try new things and innovate. Meanwhile, upgrades, patches and other changes to commercial software are no longer IT’s worry, but the responsibility of the cloud vendor, which can automate deployment and management of apps, thus allowing IT teams to work on new apps that can create a competitive advantage and provide differentiation.

Cloud vendors can also track data like application usage, storage, memory requirements and CPU Loads, along with monitoring tools that can alert enterprises to security issues or when resources are overtaxed. Leveraging these cloud offerings offers IT more detailed information than they could get from on-premise architectures.

Among some of the applications and tasks that are best suited for the cloud are email, which when hosted in the cloud can cut the risk of downtime and provide continuity for users; backup, which eliminates the cost and maintenance of expensive on-premise file servers for storage and lets users share and sync data, it can also support disaster recovery by moving data offsite; and file sharing, such as Microsoft SharePoint, which enables document management and collaboration in the cloud.

The cloud also enables companies to benefit from collective innovation and enables companies to detach their own product and service innovation from maintaining infrastructure and applications. Leaving it up to cloud vendors to bear the cost and worry of upgrades frees time and money for innovation. And other benefits like speed, lower costs, easier access and the elimination of upgrade and versioning hassles.

And a side-effect of this innovation driven by the cloud is the ability to attract top talent. Talented engineers and developers are attracted to enterprises with a clear strategy to leverage cloud systems. And bringing aboard top talent further accelerates innovation.

The issues and topics discussed in this blog post, and the ones that preceded it, can be examined more deeply in the new whitepaper, How The Cloud Accelerates Innovation, which is available for download now.

Last week we looked at how cloud computing can spur innovation and free IT’s time to act as conduits for value-add by distancing themselves from daily firefights.

And as much as the cloud sparks that innovation flame, the open cloud can ignite a conflagration. It’s no secret that Rackspace supports open clouds. Through OpenStack we’ve helped re-invent how clouds are made and we’ve used the open standards afforded through OpenStack to completely rebuild our own cloud from the ground up.

While the cloud and its adoption supports innovation, selecting the wrong platform could build a barrier or a roadblock; it can result in less choice instead of more innovation. Getting caught up in the trap of lock-in can actually hamper innovation, and when adopting cloud infrastructure the specter of lock-in looms.

Open clouds lead to more choice. They increase the choice of vendors that you and your business can leverage to build and maintain new applications. Take OpenStack, for example; OpenStack allows organizations to create cloud services on commodity hardware and leverage the development efforts of a community of hundreds as opposed to the will of a single entity.

Open cloud ecosystems directly impact innovation. That effect may be long term, but great things don’t happen overnight. An open ecosystem harnesses the energy of more contributors or vendors, which, in turn, enables new capabilities to arrive faster. Proprietary alternatives can’t say that. Just look at the rise of the open source Linux operating system and the innovation it has generated.

Another positive side effect of open clouds and open standards is the introduction of interoperability. Open standards allow for many different services from many different sources to mesh together to create new capabilities.

Some vendors are catching on to how open clouds kick start innovation. OpenStack comprises Rackspace, NASA and a host of other organizations developing in an open source community to deliver a cloud operating system. The innovation effects can be seen here at Rackspace, which just this week launched the next generation Rackspace Cloud powered by OpenStack, a cloud product suite that runs on top of the OpenStack platform the community built.

OpenStack isn’t alone in its push for open standards in the cloud. Facebook has launched the Open Compute Project, a community-driven effort to create low-cost, green data centers leveraging powerful, yet low-cost hardware. VMware makes its open contributions through its Cloud Foundry cloud platform and released that code to the open source developer community. OpenStack, meanwhile, has created a community that is looking to tie all of those components into a single system to drive a new paradigm of innovation in the cloud to create new products and services, which will also lead to the launch of new companies and new jobs.

Working in a community-driven environment to build out a cloud ecosystem has positive effects on innovation. Those types of communities attract services partners, independent software vendors and other enterprises that all work together to make the project better, which can boost the speed to market more quickly than just one company working on its own.

OpenStack has comprised some of the largest and most significant vendors, each of which provides its own technology to light the fire of innovation within an enterprise: Microsoft, Dell, Intel, AMD, Opscode and a host of others have put their stamp on the OpenStack project with tools and offerings that build out a cloud ecosystem and get the innovation juices flowing.

Where cloud computing eliminates the barriers and the bottlenecks of on-premise IT that stunt innovation, the open cloud and OpenStack are taking that one step further and removing the bumps in the road that can hinder innovation, which are often prevalent in commercial and proprietary cloud offerings. Adhering to open standards and taking an open approach to the cloud helps enterprises avoids the lock-in that can arise from using proprietary systems and makes the road to innovation a much smoother ride.

The issues and topics discussed in this blog post, and the ones to follow, can be examined more deeply in the new whitepaper, How The Cloud Accelerates Innovation, which is available for download now.