Bill Coleman: Cloud is still v1.0, but he has an idea or two for entrepreneurs

Silicon Valley seems to breed serial entrepreneurs. My former boss, Bill Coleman, is one of those people. He has put many years into high-tech ventures, including Sun, BEA, and now Cassatt, and has made a huge impression on the industry.One of the questions I kept getting asked after CA picked up the Cassatt people and assets earlier this summer was "what's Bill Coleman going to do next?" So, I

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Confessions of a guy who tried to define cloud computing

The first step to a cure is admitting you have a problem. OK, I admit it.I keep trying to help define cloud computing.Every time I see the topic come up on a blog or in one of the industry trade pubs (or rather, "industry trade sites" -- the printed publication part is rapidly falling by the wayside), I'm tempted to leave a quick comment with my take on how well or badly I thought the author used

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Isn't IT automation inherently evil? (I mean, you saw 'The Terminator,' right?)

While the general take on CloudWorld in San Francisco last week may have been that it was merely a shadow of what industry attendees were expecting, at least one presentation seems to have registered on the "worthy-of-discussion" meter. Lew Tucker from Sun was written up by Larry Dignan of ZDNet, Reuven Cohen, The Register, and others, for Lew's commentary on self-provisioning applications and "

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Inklings of what you really need for cloud management

I've seen a number of articles in recent weeks recounting some of the issues that customers are going to have if they really, truly want to start using cloud computing in some capacity. A number of the presenters at this week's Cloud World Expo said much the same. And it's not pretty. For example:David Linthicum, in an Intelligent Enterprise piece recently, rattled off some pretty serious issues

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U.S. CTO Chopra: 'What can we deliver in 90 days?'

For the United States' Chief Technology Officer, the first visit to Silicon Valley is probably a bit like a new Secretary of State's first visit to Russia, China, or the E.U. All eyes are on you (is he a partner? adversary?), sizing you up, wondering who you really are and what change you can possibly bring.For Aneesh Chopra, who took on the role of U.S. CTO in May, the challenge is even bigger:

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