The Cloud Center

What makes Cloud startups different?

The global nature of Cloud Computing is a major difference from past services. Startups not only need to deal with multiple currencies, languages & localization, but they need to deal with significant & sometimes unbearable legal and political complications.

Types of Cloud Computing Startups

  • Consumer SaaS - like Dropbox, targets one consumer. Likely to have ads or Freemium model. Also likely to have a strong mobile component. Might also have a business & enterprise edition.
  • Enterprise SaaS - like Box.net or Salesforce.com, likely to have a strong focus on monthly recurring user fee
  • Managed Services - like Amazon Web Services (EC2, etc.) or Rackspace, where they manage compute & storage servers for you. Strong focus on pay as you go.
  • Enterprise Software - like Eucalyptus or MongoDB - the software creates a cloud or runs in the cloud. More and more is Open Source. Free open source, but paid support.