Is the Cloud Application Platform Market Going Grey?

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement that swirls around cloud computing. In my view, it’s probably the single most vibrant and passionate topic in technology today. Let me rephrase that: In my view, it’s probably the single most vibrant and passionate topic in business today.

That’s an important distinction and one that signals the maturing of the cloud computing market. For companies like Appistry, on the leading edge of this space, that maturation manifests itself in one thing: customers. Not technology. Not hype. Just the tried and true metric of business success.

And by that measure, we’re pretty stoked. In addition to having what we think is the industry’s most advanced cloud application platform, from the looks of those who are using it, so do some pretty impressive organizations — folks like FedEx, State Street Bank, GeoEye, Northrop Grumman, Citigroup and five of the largest US intelligence agencies are among Appistry customers.

Not only that, but Appistry customers are an excited, enthusiastic bunch who want to show others how to make cloud computing work for their organizations. In fact, Appistry has sponsored a series of webinars featuring our customers’ success stories, including:

1. FedEx on their private cloud , which helps them deliver every package that passes through the FedEx Express system,
2. Presidio Health on how they leveraged our cloud platform to speed time to market and reduce infrastructure costs,
3. Tygart, who on November 11 will discuss their use of Appistry’s platform to help the intelligence community analyze digital media for national security.

We’ve obviously addressing a major pain point for customers with our CloudIQ platform.

Another telling indication that you are doing something right is when firms like Gartner start to cover and define a broader market around what you are doing. That hit me when I saw their recently published report: “Who’s Who in Application Platforms for Cloud Computing: The Enterprise Generalists” [$] by Yefim V. Natis, Eric Knipp, Ray Valdes, Massimo Pezzini, Daniel Sholler, David W. Cearley, David Mitchell Smith, Jess Thompson, September 16, 2009.

While it’s certainly not the first time that Gartner has covered app platforms, the release of the who’s who is another indication of the growing maturity of cloud application platforms as a key tool for enterprises seeking to transform the way they deliver applications. Analysis from Forrester, The 451 Group and others also indicate that the market for cloud platforms is gaining traction.

But in the end, it’s still customers — real companies — driving the increased traction. I hear it from them every day: Cloud application platforms help companies get their applications to the cloud and drive capital and operational savings by attacking the limitations of virtualization, providing a more efficient way to deliver and deploy applications in private datacenters, and removing the risk of eventually tapping into public clouds.

In some ways, Gartner’s report is a trailing indicator of customer interest, but a leading indicator of mass market adoption. The cloud computing market, and the cloud application platform market in particular, is maturing — maybe faster than many within the industry realize.