You can tell when it’s earning season for cloud providers.  I get an e-mail every hour that talks about how cloud revenue has grown for some big, publically traded company, and how I should write a story about their great success.  So, I do my due diligence.

When it comes to cloud earnings, you may be shocked to learn that there are liars, damn liars, and cloud revenue reports.  Many of the larger enterprise software players’ cloud revenue reports spin everything at cloud revenue, be it electronic commerce systems, kinda-sorta private clouds, or just applications that can be remotely delivered.  It’s getting so bad that you have to spend hours trying to figure out what’s cloud, and what’s cloud washed.

However, you should not care so much about revenue.  We have a tendency to get too caught up with who’s winning, and then we automatically think that cloud provider is the best bet.

The real contender for your cloud computing dollars should be cloud providers that have a good record of performance, and can prove that record without having to ask them a hundred questions.  While market position is important for those who buy stocks, or invest in cloud startups, the metrics for enterprises adoption are much different.  Let’s stop paying so much attention to revenue.