http://blogs.msdn.com/b/gianpaolo/archive/2008/10/15/head-in-the-cloud-feet-on-the-ground-an-article-about-the-cloud.aspxMy brother in arms Eugenio and I wrote an article a few weeks back discussing the opportunity that &quot;the cloud&quot; offers in terms of IT optimization. Of course this is not the only opportunity that &quot;the cloud&quot; will offer, but it is likelyen-USTelligent Evolution Platform Developer Build (Build: 5.6.50428.7875)http://blogs.msdn.com/b/gianpaolo/archive/2008/10/15/head-in-the-cloud-feet-on-the-ground-an-article-about-the-cloud.aspx#9001127Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:14:16 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:9001127darryl@technovate.net<p>Gianpolo makes the suggestion (lesson 2) that a hybrid model can add economies of scale - yet drawing from his example of the iron ore train rumbling across the scorched red earth of the Australian outback - for this specific application there is no more economical model than very large modes of transport (many examples in Australia).</p> <p>Perhaps the IT equivalent is the massive, high volume systems like airline registration which have to be centralised in order to share data in real-time.</p> <p>There are horses-for-courses and in some cases a hybrid model may simply fail to serve any particular group while trying to be &quot;all things to all people&quot;.</p> <p>regards</p> <p>Darryl</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=9001127" width="1" height="1">