Stories by: Christine Burns

When it comes to Infrastructure as a Service - renting on-demand compute, storage and network resources that live in a multitenant virtualized public cloud - midsized businesses are jumping in with both feet. But large enterprises with their own well-established data centers are still dipping their toes in the water.

We assembled this list with help from analysts at Cloud Technology Partners, Current Analysis, Enterprise Strategy Group, Gartner, IDC and Neovise who watch the public cloud Infrastructure as a Service scene very closely. Each was asked to name the companies they believed have the most influence -- whether that's measured in market share, mind share, revenue, existing enterprise pull or underlying technology links -- in drawing enterprise customers into the realm of public cloud infrastructure. They are listed here in alphabetical order.

The PaaS-abilities are endless. Industry analysts are saying that now is the right time for developers to look to Platform-as-a-service as a viable option.

As early as 2008, Bullhorn Inc., a fast growing Boston-based provider of front-office staffing and recruiting management software, was considering the cloud to help streamline development and distribution of its Software as a Service (SaaS) products to over 2,500 customers and 25,000 users in 35 countries.

Enterprise developers looking to tap into Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings over the next 18 months will not want for choice. In fact, one could argue that the existence of so many choices is creating confusion and inhibiting the growth of PaaS.

Any corporate application developer hoping to make the journey to the cloud with the help of a Platform as a Service implementation is wise to listen to those who have already ventured down that path.

If you think cloud computing is a disruptive force within the enterprise, just imagine what the cloud is doing to the vendor landscape.

With scores of new cloud companies popping up and so many existing players jumping on the cloud bandwagon, we wondered where the traditional enterprise networking vendors stood?

With scores of new cloud companies popping up and so many existing players jumping on the cloud bandwagon, we wondered where the traditional enterprise networking vendors stood?

With scores of new cloud companies popping up and so many existing players jumping on the cloud bandwagon, we wondered where the traditional enterprise networking vendors stood?