Lots to chew on in Om Malik's report on the emerging cloud-computing strategy from Sun Microsystems, but the key takeaway for CIOs is this one: "For Sun, the opportunities are with mid-size and large corporations -- like banks, pharma and financial companies -- that need to build their own clouds because they cannot use Amazon type on-demand computing due to certain legal and regulatory limitations." [emphasis added]

The cloud metaphor is deliberately amorphous, but it's tempting to stamp it with a simple definition or assume that there's a single migratory path to cloud computing. Resist such temptation.

Carr: "We'll see large companies use the technologies of utility supply--virtualization, multi-tenant systems and so forth--to build in essence in-house utilities that will serve their own business units...That hybrid model is going to last for large companies quite a long time."