>>Think "plausible deniability" - a big cog in a political machine, something Microsoft is surely a part of nowadays.
>
>This is way to much paranio for me. So MS is lying to us about the meaning of what they say "cloud" is? What would the gain by that? In any case, this isn't an MS only term:

No, I don't think we can carry it down to that kind of level (IE, the word "cloud" and a secret meaning. Hopefully the days of 'depending on what your definition of "is" is', are behind us (politically speaking).

>Michael Dunn of CTO Time Warner quote:
>So when you're thinking about something that's within the purview of your day-to-day job--whether it's simple e-mail, a LAN/MAN/WAN environment, or your server environment--you also have to be thinking you're going to be out in the "public cloud"--that is, on the Internet--at some point as well.
>http://www.sun.com/dot-com/sunjournal/v4n2/feature1b.html

Irrelevent who invented the term, but Microsoft's sure throwing up a lot of "clouds" of smoke about a lot of things that cover exactly what their "plans" are. (and not just "trade secrets", or "business plans" are being kept hidden, IMO). Some of these things are NOT best left unsaid. YMMV.

I guess Microsoft is a bit in the proverbial "rock and a hard place". An awful lot depends on the future of .Net, WPA, HailStorm, etc., and other technologies/ideologies that haven't been brought forth into the public eye (yet). But it's also important that they keep us, the developers who *use* their products, to supply the world with the applications *they* want and need, not just Microsoft *knows what's best* for them. Bill Gates is not my mother, nor anyone elses. < BG >

I've been those roads before with IBM and their FUD, and so has Jim, I believe. Paranoia is not a substitute for experience. If that makes me a little gun-shy, so be it. Time will certainly tell.