Last week, InfoWorld’s David Linthicum made what I think is a very astute and long overdue observation: The term "cloud computing" has approached the point of being meaningless. As he points out, that’s not because nobody can agree on what the cloud is or has been created to do, but because every vendor in the IT space is falling over themselves to tell you just how "cloudy" they are — and spending a mint in marketing dollars to do it. Along the way, they’ve diluted the term to the point where it’s hard to tell what anyone’s really talking about anymore.

A particularly powerful area to apply Cloud computing is the automation of “unstructured content workflows” – Those business processes conducted manually via Word documents sent via email, conference calls and other multimedia that sits outside of enterprise applications.

Applications like CRM tackle a particular sub-set of processes relevant to customer information, and can often implement workflows like ‘Sales Quote’ for example. However this is just a record for reporting purposes, the actual work itself is achieved through writing it in Word and using email to share it with management for approvals etc…

"Cloud Expo was announced on February 24, 2007, the day the term ‘cloud computing’ was coined," said Fuat Kircaali, founder and chairman of SYS-CON Events, Inc. "Cloud has become synonymous with ‘computing’ and ‘software’ in two short years, and this event has become the new PC Expo, Comdex, and InternetWorld of our decade. By 2012, more than 50,000 delegates per year will be attending Cloud Expo."

EMC held its annual forum in Long Beach, Calif. earlier this month. Cloud computing, of course, dominated the messaging. But there were plenty of other subjects in the spotlight. Here are 10 major takeaways from the show….

The perception of cloud computing as a critical evolution in the way we live and work is rapidly growing, but what the recent spate of high-profile security breaches and service outages have made clear is that technology is only as strong as its weakest link – and it is critical that organizations take a holistic approach to ensure the success of their cloud strategies…

When IBM-PC pioneer Mark Dean said that we’re entering the Post-PC era, a lot of people were surprised. After all, here’s a guy who is IBM’s CTO for the Middle East and Africa, one of the actual developers of the original IBM-PC, saying that its glory days are over. Who’d a thunk it?…

Gartner’s Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle is an annual data collection that provides an assessment of the enthusiasm, unrealistic qualities and possible realities of hundreds of different technologies for small and large businesses alike. This year’s report was recently released and demonstrated the tendencies, side effects and bonuses of 1,900 services…

As cloud computing continues to take the IT industry by storm, it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference between a good cloud partner and a “me, too” provider. Reminiscent of the dot com days, companies are popping up everywhere claiming to be cloud computing experts. In this environment, it is more important than ever to do your homework and sort out good, reliable companies from those that just want to cash in on the impending financial windfall.

When trusting valuable corporate information to a cloud provider, it is vital to know exactly who is handling your information. Look to the cloud provider’s past performance with multiple customers—ones that have been with them for five or more years.  Any cloud provider that you are considering should have a track record of success for all its customers…