Mobile Commerce (also known as M-Commerce, mCommerce or U-Commerce, owing to the ubiquitous nature of its services) is the ability to conduct commerce, using a mobile device e.g. a mobile phone (cell phone), a PDA, a smartphone and other emerging mobile equipment such as dashtop mobile devices. Mobile Commerce has been defined as follows:

"Mobile Commerce is any transaction, involving the transfer of ownership or rights to use goods and services, which is initiated and/or completed by using mobile access to computer-mediated networks with the help of an electronic device."

History

Mobile commerce was born in 1997 when the first two mobile phone enabled Coca Cola vending machines were installed in the Helsinki area in Finland. They used SMS text messages to send the payment to the vending machines. In 1997 also the first mobile phone based banking service was launched by Merita bank of Finland also using SMS.

In 1998, the first digital content sales were made possible as downloads to mobile phones when the first commercial downloadable ringing tones were launched in Finland by Radionlinja (now part of Elisa)

In 1999, two major national commercial platforms for m-commerce were launched with the introduction of a national m-payments system by Smart as Smart Money (http://smart.com.ph/money/) in the Philippines and the launch of the first mobile internet platform by NTT DoCoMoin Japan, called i-Mode. i-Mode was revolutionary also in offering a revenue-sharing deal where NTT DoCoMo only kept 9% of the content payment and returned 91% to the content owner.

Mobile commerce related services spread rapidly in early 2000 from Norway launching mobile parking, Austria offering mobile tickets to trains, and Japan offering mobile purchases of airline tickets.

The first conference dedicated to mobile commerce was held in London in July 2001 and the first book to cover m-commerce was Tomi Ahonen's M-profits in 2002. The first university short course to discuss m-commerce was held at the University of Oxford] in 2003 with Tomi Ahonen and Steve Jones lecturing. UCL Computer Science and Peter Bentley and now run dedicated courses in mobile commerce as of 2008.

PDAs and cellular phones have become so popular that many businesses are beginning to use m-commerce as a more efficient method of reaching and communicating with their customers. Although technological trends and advances are concentrated in Asia and in Europe, Canada and the United States are also beginning to experiment with early-stage m-commerce.

The less price sensitive early adopters from the 13-25 age group could drive the initial growth. Growth in mobile products such as ringtones, games, and graphics may displace spending on many traditional youth products such as music, clothing, and movies. This would radically change the dynamics of all visual entertainment and product-service distribution world wide so marketers could target end-users with diverse youth mind sets. The youth market has historically shown rapid viral growth which later gains acceptance in the mass market. While emerging markets are proving to be the ideal solution for sustaining revenues in the face of falling ARPU average price per unit, analysts say the rapid commercialization of 3G services is likely to open up new opportunities in developed markets.

In order to exploit the m-commerce market potential, handset manufacturers such as Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, and Qualcomm are working with carriers such as AT&T Wireless and Sprint to develop WAP-enabled smart phones and ways to reach them. Using Bluetooth technology, smart phones offer fax, e-mail, and phone capabilities.

"Profitability for device vendors and carriers hinges on high-end mobile devices and the accompanying killer applications," said Burchett. Perennial early adopters, such as the youth market, which are the least price sensitive, as well as more open to premium mobile content and applications, must also be a key target for device vendors.

Since the launch of the iPhone m-commerce based systems like FanGo, a popular m-commerce platform mainly for the iPhone and Blackberry, have increasingly moved away from SMS systems and into actual applications. SMS has proved to have significant vulnerabilities with security and congestion even though it is widely available and accessible. In addition improvements in the capabilities of modern mobile devices make it more prudent to carry more of the resource burden on the actual device. As phones like the iPhone become more prevalent we will see an increasing exodus from e-commerce platforms to applications and systems that will readily integrate mobile interface with the existing e-commerce back end.

Products and services available

Mobile ticketing

Tickets can be sent to mobile phones using a variety of technologies. Users are then able to use their tickets immediately by presenting their phones at the venue.

Tickets can be booked and cancelled on the mobile with the help of simple application downloads or by accessing WAP portals of various Travel agents or direct service providers.

Mobile ticketing for airports, ballparks, and train stations, for example, will not only streamline unexpected metropolitan traffic surges, but also help users remotely secure parking spots (even while in their vehicles) and greatly facilitate mass surveillance at transport hubs.

Mobile vouchers, coupons and loyalty cards

Mobile ticketing technology can also be used for the distribution of vouchers, coupons and loyalty cards. The voucher, coupon, or loyalty card is represented by a virtual token that is sent to the mobile phone. Presenting a mobile phone with one of these tokens at the point of saleallows the customer to receive the same benefits as another customer who has a loyalty card or other paper coupon/voucher. Coupons may be sent to a customer utilizing location based services when he is in a certain physical proximity (e.g. passing by a store with a current mobile coupon offer).

Content purchase and delivery

Currently, mobile content purchase and delivery mainly consists of the sale of ring-tones, wallpapers, and games for mobile phones. The convergence of mobile phones, mp3 players and video players into a single device will result in an increase in the purchase and delivery of full-length music tracks and video. Download speeds, if increased to 4G levels,will make it possible to buy a movie on a mobile device in a couple of seconds, while on the go.

Location-based services

Unlike a home PC, the location of the mobile phone user is an important piece of information used during mobile commerce transactions. Knowing the location of the user allows for location based services such

• local offers
• local weather
• people tracking and monitoring

Information services

A wide variety of information services can be delivered to mobile phone users in much the same way as it is delivered to PCs. These services include:

• news services
• stock data
• sports results
• financial records
• traffic data and information

Particularly, more customized traffic information, based on users' travel patterns, will be multicast on a differentiated basis, instead of broadcasting the same news and data to all Users. This type of multicasting will be suited for more bandwidth-intensive mobile equipment.

Mobile banking

Banks and other financial institutions are exploring the use of mobile commerce to allow their customers to not only access account information, but also make transactions, e.g. purchasing stocks, remitting money, via mobile phones and other mobile equipment. This service is often referred to as Mobile Banking or M-Banking.

Mobile brokerage

Stock market services offered via mobile devices have also become more popular and are known as Mobile Brokerage. They allow the subscriber to react to market developments in a timely fashion and irrespective of their physical location.

Auctions

Over the past three years mobile reverse auction solutions have grown in popularity. Unlike traditional auctions, the reverse auction (or low-bid auction) bills the consumer's phone each time they place a bid. Many mobile PSMS commerce solutions rely on a one-time purchase or one-time subscription; however, reverse auctions are high return applications as they allow the consumer to transact over a long period of time.

Mobile Browsing

Mobile browsing allows customers to shop online at any time in any location.

Just like a pc , you have a choice of browser . With the pc , Explorer , Firefox and Chrome fight it out . On the mobile , a smaller player , opera mini seems to have stolen a march on the big boys . As we speak link opera mini/"> rendering speed and efficient controls put it ahead of other mobile browsers.

Mobile Purchase

Instead of using paper catalogues, retailers can send customers a list of products that the customer would be interested in, directly to their mobile device or consumers can visit a mobile version of a retailers ecommerce site. Additionally, retailers will also be able to track customers at all times and notify them of discounts at local stores that the customer would be interested in.

Mobile marketing and advertising

Mobile marketing is an emerging concept, but the speed with which it's growing its roots is remarkable. Mobile marketing is highly responsive sort of marketing campaign, especially from brands’ experience point of view. And almost all brands are getting higher campaign response rates ^[3]. Corporations are now using m-commerce to expand everything from services to marketing and advertisement. Although there are currently very few regulations on the use and abuses of mobile commerce, this will change in the next few years. With the increased use of m-commerce comes increased security. Cell phone companies are now spending more money to protect their customers and their information from online intrusions and hackers.

Mobile Commerce's Influence on Youth Markets

The hierarchy of mobile media is changing very rapidly and mobile WiMax or other technologies may increase the impact of, for example, location-based mobile eCommerce. As of 2007 many companies have been trying to penetrate this market. Early pioneers in this new Mobile advertising are companies such as Vodafone, Orange France Telecom, SK Telekom and several others. Three memetic researchers and early pioneers of mobile advertising are Leveious Rolando, John Sokol and Gibran Burchett with their early experimentation of DVB-H in 1999 with Sony BMG's group Wu Tang. In 2007 on a trip to South Korea Leveious created a Venn-diagram model of rapid youth life style/trends. The diagram made explained the vital aspects of mobile adoption and sales of mobile global products/services in the mobile space. They performed an experiment in which the use of viral mobile marketing within the context in the form of mobile commercials or mobisodes were created to attract an audience and retention. The two tested a theory of rapid memetic dissemination. By observing the youth cultural styles and trends combined with the rate at which they passed on particular information given to the test subjects. Group A subjects were given words and phrases and meeting points to be used regularly in conversation. The other group the control group produced a random sampling that provided a measure of the rate at which ideas and phrases were transmitted.

Other experiments he conducted would take place in Europe-South Korea and Japan involving viral straight to the end-user mobile integrated campaigns for the delivery of products and coupons with instant savings from Mobile hand-held devices. This was commissioned by top Mobile providers like Deutch Telekom (German T mobile) and Orange with music artists -Djs and Mobile youth street teams that not only drove instant purchases of event tickets sales but also drove the sales of purchase of three different viable youth products to over 200,000 end-users in 8 days. This test showed how the Global youth mobile market can react autonomously and create trends. It also showed how products-applications take on new life because of youth mindsets who are the early adopters of any form of social engaging technology services. Leveious Rolando along with Gibran Burchett researched fashionable products in order to engage the end-consumer the m-commerce market potential, handset manufacturers such as Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, and Qualcomm are working with carriers such as AT&T Wireless and Sprint to develop WAP-enabled smart phones, the industry's answer to the Swiss Army Knife, and ways to reach them.

Other notable places where mobile devices are being used to conduct mobile commerce heavily is South Korea. Through using Bluetooth technology, smart phones offer fax, e-mail, and phone capabilities mobile companies in South Korea believed that mobile technology would become synonymous with youth life style. This was based on generations of South Koreans driving content back and forth world wide including music to drive the mobile market. "Profitability for device vendors and carriers hinges on high-end mobile devices and the accompanying killer applications," said Burchett. "Perennial early adopters, such as the youth market, which are the least price sensitive, as well as more open to premium mobile content and applications, must also be a key target for device vendors this was discuss by both Leveious Rolando and Gibran Burchett at a Mobile Commerce meeting in Japan August 2007. The early worked was transformed through dissemination they are along with few others have developed methodology to be deployed global through concerts and events and any form of youth related culture from South Korea to Japan to Europe,America in 2008 with world leading mobile software provider and world leading mobile prodvider. companies such as European giant www.orange.com and www.overcell.com and world leading personal mobile software provider www.vidiator.com and other companies in South Korea, Japan and Britain, Germany lead this evolutions of Mobile advertising. Content Generation are the global end users who are changing the way products and services are purchased and marketed ...every thing must be center around their life styles.

Payment methods

The main payment methods used to enable mobile commerce are:

• premium-rate calling numbers,
• charging to the mobile telephone user's bill or
• deducting from their calling credit.
• registration of a credit card that is linked to a SIM card.
• Billing a customer's credit card through a secure user interface.

Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like a public utility.

It is a paradigm shift following the shift from mainframe to client–server that preceded it in the early 1980s. Details are abstracted from the users who no longer have need of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them.Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption and delivery model for IT services based on the Internet, and it typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the Internet.It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet.

The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the cloud drawing used in the past to represent the telephone network,and later to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online which are accessed from another web service or software like a web browser, while the software and data are stored on servers.

Most cloud computing infrastructure consists of reliable services delivered through data centers and built on servers. Clouds often appear as single points of access for all consumers' computing needs. Commercial offerings are generally expected to meet quality of service (QoS) requirements of customers and typically offerSLAs.

Comparisons

Cloud computing derives characteristics from, but should not be confused with:

1. Autonomic computing — "computer systems capable of self-management".
2. Client–server model – Client–server computing refers broadly to any distributed application that distinguishes between service providers (servers) and service requesters (clients).
3. Grid computing — "a form of distributed computing and parallel computing, whereby a 'super and virtual computer' is composed of acluster of networked, loosely coupled computers acting in concert to perform very large tasks"
4. Mainframe — powerful computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications, typically bulk data processing such ascensus, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.
5. Utility computing — the "packaging of computing resources, such as computation and storage, as a metered service similar to a traditional public utility, such as electricity";
6. Peer-to-peer (disambiguation) – systems in which data transfer utilizes the shared resources of every system attached to the Intranet, setup for a specific task or purpose (ie: BitTorrent (protocol) as one example of many that exist.)

Characteristics

In general, cloud computing customers do not own the physical infrastructure, instead avoiding capital expenditure by renting usage from a third-party provider. They consume resources as a service and pay only for resources that they use. Many cloud-computing offerings employ the utility computing model, which is analogous to how traditional utility services (such as electricity) are consumed, whereas others bill on asubscription basis. Sharing "perishable and intangible" computing power among multiple tenants can improve utilization rates, as servers are not unnecessarily left idle (which can reduce costs significantly while increasing the speed of application development). A side-effect of this approach is that overall computer usage rises dramatically, as customers do not have to engineer for peak load limits. In addition, "increased high-speed bandwidth" makes it possible to receive the same response times from centralized infrastructure at other sites.

Economics

Cloud computing users can avoid capital expenditure (CapEx) on hardware, software, and services when they pay a provider only for what they use. Consumption is usually billed on a utility (resources consumed, like electricity) or subscription (time-based, like a newspaper) basis with little or no upfront cost. Other benefits of this time sharing-style approach are low barriers to entry, shared infrastructure and costs, low management overhead, and immediate access to a broad range of applications. In general, users can terminate the contract at any time (thereby avoiding return on investment risk and uncertainty), and the services are often covered by service level agreements (SLAs) with financial penalties.

According to Nicholas Carr, the strategic importance of information technology is diminishing as it becomes standardized and less expensive. He argues that the cloud computing paradigm shift is similar to the displacement of electricity generators by electricity grids early in the 20th century.

Although companies might be able to save on upfront capital expenditures, they might not save much and might actually pay more for operating expenses. In situations where the capital expense would be relatively small, or where the organization has more flexibility in their capital budget than their operating budget, the cloud model might not make great fiscal sense. Other factors impacting the scale of any potential cost savings include the efficiency of a company’s data center as compared to the cloud vendor’s, the company's existing operating costs, the level of adoption of cloud computing, and the type of functionality being hosted in the cloud.

Among the items that some cloud hosts charge for are instances (often with extra charges for high-memory or high-CPU instances); data transfer in and out; storage (measured by the GB-month); I/O requests; PUT requests and GET requests; IP addresses; and load balancing. In some cases, users can bid on instances, with pricing dependent on demand for available instances.

Architecture

Cloud architecture, the systems architecture of the software systems involved in the delivery of cloud computing, typically involves multiple cloud componentscommunicating with each other over application programming interfaces, usuallyweb services.This resembles the Unix philosophy of having multiple programs each doing one thing well and working together over universal interfaces. Complexity is controlled and the resulting systems are more manageable than their monolithic counterparts.

History

The underlying concept of cloud computing dates back to 1960, when John McCarthy opined that "computation may someday be organized as a public utility"; indeed it shares characteristics with service bureaus that date back to the 1960s. The actual term "cloud" borrows from telephony in that telecommunications companies, who until the 1990s primarily offered dedicated point-to-point data circuits, began offering Virtual Private Network (VPN) services with comparable quality of service but at a much lower cost. By switching traffic to balance utilization as they saw fit they were able to utilise their overall network bandwidth more effectively. The cloud symbol was used to denote the demarcation point between that which was the responsibility of the provider from that of the user. Cloud computing extends this boundary to cover servers as well as the network infrastructure.

Amazon played a key role in the development of cloud computing by modernizing their data centers after the dot-com bubble, which, like mostcomputer networks, were using as little as 10% of their capacity at any one time just to leave room for occasional spikes. Having found that the new cloud architecture resulted in significant internal efficiency improvements whereby small, fast-moving "two-pizza teams" could add new features faster and easier, Amazon started providing access to their systems through Amazon Web Services on a utility computing basis in2006.

In 2007, Google, IBM, and a number of universities embarked on a large scale cloud computing research project. By mid-2008, Gartner saw an opportunity for cloud computing "to shape the relationship among consumers of IT services, those who use IT services and those who sell them", and observed that "[o]rganisations are switching from company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service-based models" so that the "projected shift to cloud computing ... will result in dramatic growth in IT products in some areas and significant reductions in other areas."

Key features

• Agility improves with users' ability to rapidly and inexpensively re-provision technological infrastructure resources.
• Cost is claimed to be greatly reduced and capital expenditure is converted to operational expenditure. This ostensibly lowers barriers to entry, as infrastructure is typically provided by a third-party and does not need to be purchased for one-time or infrequent intensive computing tasks. Pricing on a utility computing basis is fine-grained with usage-based options and fewer IT skills are required for implementation (in-house).
• Device and location independence enable users to access systems using a web browser regardless of their location or what device they are using (e.g., PC, mobile). As infrastructure is off-site (typically provided by a third-party) and accessed via the Internet, users can connect from anywhere.
• 
  
  
  Multi-tenancy enables sharing of resources and costs across a large pool of users thus allowing for:
  
  
  • Centralization of infrastructure in locations with lower costs (such as real estate, electricity, etc.)
  • Peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer for highest possible load-levels)
  • Utilization and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 10–20% utilized.
• Reliability improves through the use of multiple redundant sites, which makes cloud computing suitable for business continuity anddisaster recovery.Nonetheless, many major cloud computing services have suffered outages, and IT and business managers can at times do little when they are affected.
• Scalability via dynamic ("on-demand") provisioning of resources on a fine-grained, self-service basis near real-time, without users having to engineer for peak loads. Performance is monitored, and consistent and loosely coupled architectures are constructed using web services as the system interface.One of the most important new methods for overcoming performance bottlenecks for a large class of applications is data parallel programming on a distributed data grid.
• Security could improve due to centralization of data, increased security-focused resources, etc., but concerns can persist about loss of control over certain sensitive data, and the lack of security for stored kernels. Security is often as good as or better than under traditional systems, in part because providers are able to devote resources to solving security issues that many customers cannot afford.Providers typically log accesses, but accessing the audit logs themselves can be difficult or impossible. Furthermore, the complexity of security is greatly increased when data is distributed over a wider area and / or number of devices.
• Maintenance cloud computing applications are easier to maintain, since they don't have to be installed on each user's computer. They are easier to support and to improve since the changes reach the clients instantly.
• Metering cloud computing resources usage should be measurable and should be metered per client and application on daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. This will enable clients on choosing the vendor cloud on cost and reliability (QoS).

Layers

Client

A cloud client consists of computer hardware and/or computer software that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or that is specifically designed for delivery of cloud services and that, in either case, is essentially useless without it. Examples include some computers, phones and other devices, operating systemsand browsers.

Application

Cloud application services or "Software as a Service (SaaS)" deliver software as a service over the Internet, eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer's own computers and simplifying maintenance and support. Key characteristics include:^[42]

• Network-based access to, and management of, commercially available (i.e., not custom) software
• Activities that are managed from central locations rather than at each customer's site, enabling customers to access applications remotely via the Web
• Application delivery that typically is closer to a one-to-many model (single instance, multi-tenant architecture) than to a one-to-one model, including architecture, pricing, partnering, and management characteristics
• Centralized feature updating, which obviates the need for downloadable patches and upgrades.

Platform

Cloud platform services or "Platform as a Service (PaaS)" deliver a computing platform and/or solution stack as a service, often consumingcloud infrastructure and sustaining cloud applications.^[43] It facilitates deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers.

Infrastructure

Cloud infrastructure services or "Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)" delivers computer infrastructure, typically a platform virtualizationenvironment as a service. Rather than purchasing servers, software, data center space or network equipment, clients instead buy those resources as a fully outsourced service. The service is typically billed on a utility computing basis and amount of resources consumed (and therefore the cost) will typically reflect the level of activity. It is an evolution of virtual private server offerings.

Server

The servers layer consists of computer hardware and/or computer software products that are specifically designed for the delivery of cloud services, including multi-core processors, cloud-specific operating systems and combined offerings.

Deployment models

Public cloud or external cloud describes cloud computing in the traditional mainstream sense, whereby resources are dynamically provisioned on a fine-grained, self-service basis over the Internet, viaweb applications/web services, from an off-site third-party provider whoshares resources and bills on a fine-grained utility computingbasis.

Community cloud

A community cloud may be established where several organizations have similar requirements and seek to share infrastructure so as to realize some of the benefits of cloud computing. With the costs spread over fewer users than a public cloud (but more than a single tenant) this option is more expensive but may offer a higher level of privacy, security and/or policy compliance. Examples of community cloud include Google's "Gov Cloud".

Hybrid cloud

A hybrid cloud environment consisting of multiple internal and/or external providers "will be typical for most enterprises". By integrating multiple cloud services users may be able to ease the transition to public cloud services while avoiding issues such as PCI compliance.

Another perspective on deploying a web application in the cloud is using Hybrid Web Hosting, where the hosting infrastructure is a mix betweenCloud Hosting for the web server, and Managed dedicated server for the database server.

Private cloud

Private cloud and internal cloud are neologisms that some vendors have recently used to describe offerings that emulate cloud computing on private networks. These (typically virtualisation automation) products claim to "deliver some benefits of cloud computing without the pitfalls", capitalising on data security, corporate governance, and reliability concerns. They have been criticized on the basis that users "still have to buy, build, and manage them" and as such do not benefit from lower up-front capital costs and less hands-on management, essentially "[lacking] the economic model that makes cloud computing such an intriguing concept".

Issues

Privacy

The Cloud model has been criticized by privacy advocates for the greater ease in which the companies hosting the Cloud services control, and thus, can monitor at will, lawfully or unlawfully, the communication and data stored between the user and the host company. Instances such as the secret NSA program, working with AT&T, and Verizon, which recorded over 10 million phone calls between American citizens, causes uncertainty among privacy advocates, and the greater powers it gives to telecommunication companies to monitor user activity. While there have been efforts (such as US-EU Safe Harbor) to "harmonise" the legal environment, providers such as Amazon still cater to major markets (typically the United States and the European Union) by deploying local infrastructure and allowing customers to select "availability zones."

Compliance

In order to obtain compliance with regulations including FISMA, HIPAA and SOX in the US, the Data Protection Directive in the EU and the credit card industry's PCI DSS, users may have to adopt community or hybrid deployment modes which are typically more expensive and may offer restricted benefits. This is how Google is able to "manage and meet additional government policy requirements beyond FISMA"^[58][59] andRackspace Cloud are able to claim PCI compliance. Customers in the EU contracting with Cloud Providers established outside the EU/EEA have to adhere to the EU regulations on export of personal data.

Many providers also obtain SAS 70 Type II certification (e.g. Amazon, Google and Microsoft), but this has been criticised on the grounds that the hand-picked set of goals and standards determined by the auditor and the auditee are often not disclosed and can vary widely. Providers typically make this information available on request, under non-disclosure agreement.

Legal

In March 2007, Dell applied to trademark the term "cloud computing" (U.S. Trademark 77,139,082) in the United States. The "Notice of Allowance" the company received in July 2008 was cancelled in August, resulting in a formal rejection of the trademark application less than a week later.

Since 2007, the number of trademark filings covering cloud computing brands, goods and services has increased at an almost exponential rate. As companies sought to better position themselves for cloud computing branding and marketing efforts, cloud computing trademark filings increased by 483% between 2008 and 2009. In 2009, 116 cloud computing trademarks were filed, and trademark analysts predict that over 500 such marks could be filed during 2010. 

Open source

Open standards are critical to the growth of cloud computing, and open source software has provided the foundation for many cloud computing implementations. In November 2007, the Free Software Foundation released the Affero General Public License, a version of GPLv3 intended to close a perceived legal loophole associated with free software designed to be run over a network.

Open standards

Most cloud providers expose APIs which are typically well-documented (often under a Creative Commons license) however also unique to their implementation and thus not interoperable. Some vendors have adopted others' APIs and there are a number of open standards under development, including the OGF's Open Cloud Computing Interface. The Open Cloud Consortium (OCC)  is working to develop consensus on early cloud computing standards and practices.

Security

The relative security of cloud computing services is a contentious issue which may be delaying its adoption. Some argue that customer data is more secure when managed internally, while others argue that cloud providers have a strong incentive to maintain trust and as such employ a higher level of security.

The Cloud Security Alliance is a non-profit organization formed to promote the use of best practices for providing security assurance within Cloud Computing.

Sustainability

Although cloud computing is often assumed to be a form of "green computing", there is as of yet no published study to substantiate this assumption.

Research

A number of universities, vendors and government organizations are investing in research around the topic of cloud computing.Academic institutions include University of Melbourne (Australia), Georgia Tech, Yale, Wayne State, Virginia Tech, University of Wisconsin Madison, Boston University, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Indiana University, University of Massachusetts, University of Maryland, North Carolina State, Purdue, University of California, University of Washington, University of Virginia, University of Utah, University of Minnesota, among others.

Joint government, academic and vendor collaborative research projects include the IBM/Google Academic Cloud Computing Initiative (ACCI). In October 2007 IBM and Google announced the multi- university project designed to enhance students’ technical knowledge to address the challenges of cloud computing. In April 2009, the National Science Foundation joined the ACCI and awarded approximately $5 million in grants to 14 academic institutions.

In July 2008, HP, Intel Corporation and Yahoo! announced the creation of a global, multi-data center, open source test bed, called Open Cirrus, designed to encourage research into all aspects of cloud computing, service and data center management.Open Cirrus partners include the NSF, the University of Illinois (UIUC), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), the Malaysian Institute for Microelectronic Systems(MIMOS), and the Institute for System Programming at the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISPRAS).

The Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) project provides the world's largest production grid infrastructure for applications for use by more than 10,000 researchers from 50 countries, according to the European Union EGEE Web site.

The IEEE Technical Committee on Services Computing in IEEE Computer Society sponsors the IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing (CLOUD). CLOUD 2010 will be held on July 5–10, 2010 in Miami, Florida.