SYS-CON Events announced today that Microsoft was named "Platinum Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 2nd International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, which will take place on March 30-April 1, 2009, in New York City. The event is expected to attract over 1,200 developers, engineers, architects, IT managers, and hardware and software professionals of every stripe.

With the advent of Cloud Computing, the cost of computation, application hosting and content storage and delivery is plunging fast by several orders of magnitude.

This is why many analysts and industry-watchers believe that Cloud Computing is changing not just the technology landscape but also the entire nature of the business models that underpin successful software and hardware companies.

Leading financial analysts estimate that by 2011 the volume of Cloud Computing market opportunity will amount to $160BN, including $95N in business and productivity apps (e-mail, office, CRM, etc.) and $65BN in online advertising.

SYS-CON's 1st International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, held on Nov. 19-21, 2008, in San Jose, CA, attracted more than 40 sponsors with over 1,200 delegates.

Topics will include:

• SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS
• Automation
• Grid Software
• Elastic Computing
• Cloud Databases
• Scalability
• Fabric Computing
• Cloudstorming
• Green IT
• High-Performance Computing
• Service Management
• Web-scale Computing
• Cloud Standards
• Cloud Reliability & Security
• Private Cloud Computing
• Internal Clouds

Record Attendance For Cloud Computing Expo with More Than 1,200 Delegates
1st International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, last November in San Jose attracted more than 1,200 delegates from 43 different countries.

Virtualization Conference Attracts More Delegates Than Any Recent Gartner Event
Last year's Virtualization Conference & Expo in New York City was larger than any recent Gartner event with more than 1,500 delegates attending from 37 different countries.

Leading Virtualization and Cloud Computing Companies As Conference Sponsors
Upcoming event in New York City is sponsored by more than 30 leading Virtualization and  Cloud Computing technology providers including such companies as: 3Tera, Aria Systems, AppSense, CA, Corporate Technologies, Cycle Computing, EMC, ExactTarget, IBM, MeetTheBoss.com, Metron, Microsoft, mindSHIFT, ParaScale, RightScale, Sun Microsystems, Tranxition, VIRTERA, and Zeus Technology.

Most Distinguished Conference Faculty of 2009
2nd International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, colocated with 5th International Virtualization Conference & Expo presents the most distinguished faculty of speakers on any technology conference taking place in 2009. Speakers, general session  and keynote presenters include such names as: ,Ajay Anand (Yahoo!), Alan Williamson (AW 2.0 Ltd), Anthony Arrott (Trend Micro), Bill McColl (Cloudscale), Bob Quinn (3Leaf Systems), Brian H. Prince (Microsoft), Brian Zanghi (Kadient), Bryan Wade (ExactTarget), Clod Barrera (IBM), Daniel Beveridge (VIRTERA), David Bernstein (Cisco), David Bressler (Progress Software), David Douglas (Sun Microsytems), David Linthicum (Blue Mountain Labs), Doug Tidwell (IBM), Ed Sullivan (Aria Systems), Glenn Brunette (Sun Microsystems), Jeff Bauer (Forbes.com), Jeremy Geelan (SYS-CON Media), Jim Rymarczyk (IBM), Joe Gregorio (Google), Joel York (Xignite), John Barr (Yieldex), John du Pre Gauntt (Media Dojo), John Laferriere (Corporate Technologies), Jon Pyke (Cordys), JP Morgenthal (J.P. Morgenthal Blog), Kenneth Oestreich (Egenera), Kevin L. Jackson (Dataline), Kristof Kloeckner (IBM), Lucian Lipinsky de Orlov (VIRTERA), Martin Ingram (AppSense), Matt Holleran (Emergence Capital), Michael Hill (IBM), Omer Trajman (Vertica), Owen Garrett (Zeus Technology), Patrick Kerpan (CohesiveFT), Pau Garcia-Mila (eyeOS), Peter Coffee Salesforce.com), Peter Nickolov (3Tera), Phil Fritz (IBM), Prasad Rampalli (Intel), Raghavan Srinivas (Intuit), Ranjith Ramakrishnan (Cumulux), Reuven Cohen (Cloud Interoperability Forum), Rich Wolski (University of California), Ronnie Thomson (Quark), Russ Daniels (HP), Sajai Krishnan (ParaScale), Scott Wiener (Cloud9 Analytics), Simon Wardley (Canonical), Stephen Elliot (CA), Steve Milroy (OnTerra Systems), Stuart Charlton (Elastra), Thorsten von Eicken (RightScale), Tien Tzuo (Zuora), Tim Crawford (Stanford University), Vik Chaudhary (Keynote Systems), Warren Wilbee (Microsoft), Werner Vogels (Amazon.com), William Fellows (The 451 Group).

• Microsoft to Present at SYS-CON’s Cloud Computing Expo in NYC