Consequently, IT organizations have no reason to avoid using public cloud computing; after all, the choice is between nothing and something, rather than an existing something and a new something.

A good analogy for what is going to occur with cloud computing in emerging economies is what happened with telephony. Most of these countries, as their economies developed, hopscotched right over fixed-line telephony, and moved directly to mobile as the primary form of telephony, based on its convenience, flexibility, and lower cost.

Likewise, we'll see a rush to cloud computing since it does not require significant end user investment in wasting assets. Don't be surprised if the growth rates of cloud computing in emerging economies far outstrips that in more developed nations.

Many people point to the astonishing rapidity with which AWS continues to roll out new features and service offerings. Its launch this week of Route53, a robust and inexpensive DNS service, is just one example of the company's continued innovation. However, AWS is by no means alone regarding innovation and creativity. Next year we will continue to see amazing new offerings from companies that create services based upon cheap and scalable infrastructure. One I ran across this week is from Qik, which provides the ability to stream video from a mobile device. While that's interesting, my friend pointed out some additional features that make the service irresistible -- when he starts streaming, his Twitter followers are alerted that he is streaming something, and they can react to his stream with questions or observations -- which are displayed in his app so that he can respond in real-time. That's cool -- and cloud.