The title of this blog refers to the beauty of cloud computing:  real-time, on-demand data access, regardless of where you are (presuming you are connected to the Internet, of course).  Isn’t it a great concept? Beyond its promise to shake up IT and the way we do business in the coming years, one of things I find interesting about the cloud today is the fact that, despite the glum economy, interest continues to grow.

For evidence of this, those of you in the Bay Area tomorrow can check out the IDC Cloud Computing Forum ─ IDC expects healthy attendance.  And two weeks ago we were at the Parallels Summit 2009, which saw about twice as many attendees as the previous year.  These are good signs that our industry isn’t moribund just yet!

So while budgets are undeniably tight right now, it seems that companies are wisely exploring the potential cost-savings associated with virtualization and cloud computing.

AMD’s Margaret Lewis is hosting a panel at the IDC Cloud Forum, brining together Amazon, Accenture, Red Hat and The Schumacher Group for what should be a lively discussion, hosted by IDC’s Frank Gens.  The panelists have promised to stay true to the title of the panel which is “Building the Business Case for Cloud Computing.”  If you can’t make it we’ll have video up on AMD Unprocessed not long afterward.

And for more on this topic, please continue to check out Margaret’s blog – it’s a good read.

Nigel Dessau is senior vice president and chief marketing officer at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.