Dallas (ip-192.com): Both AT&T and IBM announced a new cloud-based computing service that gives businesses near instant on-demand access to computing resources via an online portal. Cloud computing already offered by companies such as Amazon, Google, Salesforce, and Verizon Communications, allows companies to run software and store information in remote, large-scale data centers that can be accessed over the Internet. That means users can cut back on hardware, as well as space and electricity.

IBM’s offering is called "Smart Analytics Cloud," AT&T’s Synaptic Compute as a Service (CaaS) is the third in a series of AT&T Synaptic offerings, following the already launched hosting and storage services. AT&T says that CaaS will become commercially available before the end of 2009 in the U.S. and be rolled out globally in the future. IBM also plans to roll out its “Smart Analytics Cloud” globally.

AT&T has teamed up with VMware Inc. for virtualization technology and Sun Microsystems Inc. The carrier sees many uses for its cloud-based computing from disaster recovery, to support of seasonal projects, to the ability to launch applications quickly without having to invest capital.

"It's a service that has a differing kind of acquisition model and consumption model," says Roman Pacewicz, senior vice president of Strategy and Application Services at AT&T Business Solutions. "It's very much intended to be like our storage as a service, where you can buy it online, and the billing is based on what you use. It has the flexibility that a lot of our clients want."

AT&T intends to differentiate its offering from those of IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) and other computing-centric companies by offering access to the AT&T Synaptic CaaS via its virtual private network (VPN), and enable its enterprise customers to unify and centrally manage their distributed network resources and applications. The combination of VMware’s technology will enable clients to create hybrid clouds that can be used seamlessly, because the resources will look like just another instance on the client VPN, says Roman. Enterprises will be able to move applications or data around to fit their changing needs or demands, turning cloud computing up or down as needed.

While we are still in the early days of cloud computing that will see sales of about $3.4 billion in 2009, competition in the heating up. Microsoft and Google just announced price cuts for certain cloud-based applications and Amazon is expanding into Asia.

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