The world's first journal devoted to the delivery of massively scalable IT resources as a service has been launched by SYS-CON Media, the latest in a series of leading-edge additions to its 25-plus stable of online and print publications such as Web 2.0 Journal, AJAX & RIA Journal, Open Web Developer's Journal, and iPhone Developer's Journal. Why is cloud computing important? Because potentially the notion of massively scalable IT resources delivered as a service impacts every aspect of how IT deploys and operates software in the future. To date the market has been driven largely by marketing and service offerings from big corporate players like Google, IBM, Amazon and SalesForce.com, but there's also a whole new wave of companies competing for a share of The Cloud.

Two of the biggest launches in Rich Internet Application history took place in 2007/2008 when Adobe launched AIR 1.0 in February '08 and Microsoft launched Silverlight (September '07). At the 6th International AJAXWorld RIA Conference & Expo in October SYS-CON Events is delighted to be presenting major industry keynotes from the two industry executives with overall responsibility for both of those massive richer-web initiatives: Adobe's CTO Kevin Lynch and Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform.

The future model for providing IT infrastructure and services in large organizations is what many today are calling 'Cloud Computing' - a concept popularized by Amazon through its web services efforts. Merrill Lynch analysts for example reckon that by 2011 the volume of Cloud Computing market opportunity will amount to $160BN. SYS-CON Media & Events is continuing its market-leading practice of launching full-blown conferences ahead of anyone else by launching its content-rich Cloud Computing Expo, to be held November 20-21, 2008 in San Jose, California.

Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens, Citrix CTO Simon Crosby, Egenera CTO Pete Manca, Allen Stewart, Group Manager, Windows Virtualization at Microsoft, and Brian Duckering, Sr. Director of Products and Alliances at Symantec were the top industry executives who joined Jeremy Geelan in the 4th Floor Reuters Studio overlooking Times Square for a special SYS-CON.TV 'Virtualization Power Panel' recorded on June 22, 2008, the day before the opening of SYS-CON's 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo - which was held 23-24 June 2008 in New York City.

SYS-CON Events announced today that the Virtualization on Wall Street Conference & Expo will take place on March 22-24, 2009, in New York City. The event is expected to attract over 1,000 developers, architects, IT managers, and software professionals of every stripe who will be converging in New York City to attend this comprehensive meeting on Virtualization on Wall Street.

Mike Neil is general manager for virtualization strategy in the Windows Server Division at Microsoft. Mike is focused on the delivery of the Windows virtualization technology, including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server and Virtual PC 2007. Mike also directs the technical enablement of Microsoft's broader vision for virtualization, to include virtualization management tools and virtualized desktop infrastructure. Prior to this role, Mike was responsible for Microsoft?s server and PC virtualization efforts since 2003.

RIAs offer the potential to fundamentally change the user experience and in doing so, yield significant business benefits. The theme of this October's AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2008 West is 'Beyond AJAX to the RIA Era' and the Call for Papers, which is currently still open, specifically encourages submissions from exceptional speakers with high-quality use cases of the fast-emerging RIA alternatives.

Virtualization has quickly become a staple new concept for enterprise IT. At SYS-CON's 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo, held at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, June 23-24, we had exceptional speakers with high-quality use cases not only of how virtualization maximizes the use of resources and thus saves companies money, but also of how it is fundamentally altering the way that businesses run IT. The two content-packed days emphasized value with a rich array of sessions about the business and technical value of virtualization.

'Traditionally people have tied their software to their hardware. Virtualization changes all that,' said Dr Stephen Herrod, CTO of VMware, the 10-year old Virtualization giant. Herrod gave a highly informative Morning Keynote today in New York City at the 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo, in the stately setting of the Grand Ballroom at New York's historic Roosevelt Hotel.

Cloud Computing offers significant benefits over traditional solutions for deploying production systems as well as for conducting development and testing activities. Dr Thorsten von Eicken, CTO of RightScale, Inc., will be giving a session at SYS-CON's 'Cloud Computing Expo' (November 20-21, 2008) - an adjunct to the 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA.

Brian Stevens, the Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering of Red Hat, delivered his Virtualization Keynote 'The Future of the Virtual Enterprise' at SYS-CON's Virtualization Conference & Expo 2007 West in San Francisco. 'Virtualization is the hottest subject today,' said Stevens, an industry luminary, who is credited with having pioneered new technologies that contributed to the rise of Linux as an industry-standard operating platform.

The conference theme of the Virtualization Conference & Expo Europe, to be held in London, England, January 26-27, 2009, is 'Deploying Virtualization in the Enterprise.' The Call for Papers, which is now open, welcomes submissions from exceptional speakers with high-quality use cases not only of how virtualization maximizes the use of resources and thus saves companies money, but also of how it is fundamentally altering the way that businesses run IT.

SYS-CON Media's Virtualization Journal announced today that the polls have opened for its first annual Virtualization Readers' Choice Awards. Readers will be casting their votes until November 8, 2008. Winners and finalists will be announced at the 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo 2008 West, November 19-21, in San Jose, CA.

SOA World Magazine announced today that the polls are now open for the SOA World Magazine Readers' Choice Awards, which recognize excellence in the software, solutions, or services provided by the industry's top vendors. Readers will be casting their votes until November 8, 2008. Winners and finalists will be announced at the 14th International SOA World Conference & Expo 2008 West, November 19-21, in San Jose, CA.

In a May 2008 report, Merrill Lynch estimated that 12% of the worldwide software market would start using cloud technology in the next 5 years and that the annual revenue for cloud computing will increase to $95 billion in the same period. Now, according to the Wall Street Journal, AT&T; has become the latest company to invest in cloud computing.