IBM Cloud Computing

"In recent years, I.B.M. has championed efforts to make data centers more efficient and to centralize more computing tasks in the data centers, with desktops and devices tapping in. These have had names like "autonomic," "utility" and grid computing.
Those concepts and research efforts have made a contribution to cloud computing. Experts say tools have been added to spread computing tasks across clusters of many machines and to make programming simpler. Advances likely to broaden the reach of cloud computing have often come from researchers tackling the challenges posed by Internet searches.
"In some ways, the cloud is a natural next step from the grid-utility model," said Frank Gens, an analyst at the research firm IDC. "What's different is the Google programming model, and that really opens things up. You don't have to be a Stanford or Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. to program cloud applications.""