The chief benefit of AWS is that it's incredibly cheap compared to any other similar solution, such as renting dedicated computers in a data center. Thus it's ideal for bedroom programmers or startup software outfits, who can pay for as much computing power or storage as they need. AWS is also instantly scalable, so programmers needn't worry if their applications shoots from just 10 users to thousands overnight, as can sometimes happen if the app is a featured download in an app store.

The release of the SDK for Android is sure to rattle the cage of Google, whose primary drive behind the creation of the Android and Chrome operating systems is to --using Google's cloud services, of course, which could allow the search giant to discreetly monitor any data passing through its hands.

Research in Motion and Nokia appear to have been left out of the SDK handout and might be wondering when they, too, will receive some Amazon love. Easy access to cloud services is undoubtedly crucial for the growth of an app ecosystem, which both companies are desperately keen to see happen.

Amazon suggests the new SDKs can be used for things like sharing high scores within games, or creating messaging clients that use Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) and Amazon Simple Notifications Service (Amazon SNS).

This hints at a potential downside of the SDK release, in that it might become a little too easy to create cloud apps--there might be a glut of applications that simply duplicate the functionality found in other apps. On the other hand, today's also-ran IM application might well be tomorrow's industry standard, and, in theory, heavy-duty applications such as photo or video editing applications based in the cloud are also made possible.