InformationWeek's Cloud Computing Destination

Google, Amazon Top Public Cloud Surveys

Likewise, developers view IBM and VMware as the two vendors most dedicated to creating the private cloud and most likely to execute a private cloud strategy.

The results were aired in a report from Evans Data Corp., a market researcher in the field of developer opinion, in its first "Users Choice" report on cloud computing.

After Google and Amazon, VMware and Microsoft have the highest adoption rates for cloud computing, with IBM trailing them. Evans Data analyst Janel Garvin, said IBM's adoption rate will catch up to the other two, if developers carry out their projected take up rates.

"IBM has the lead over each company except Amazon and Google when it comes to the perception of ability to execute," wrote Garvin in her report, "Perceptions of Cloud Service Providers: Who's Who and Where in the Cloud" issued Wednesday.

"Microsoft is viewed as having as complete a set of cloud service offerings in its Azure platform but is considered less capable of executing cloud services than most of the other companies. The lack of confidence in Microsoft along these lines may have something to do with the nature of their traditional business model -- a model that cloud is at odds with," she wrote.

Microsoft is sometimes cited as being out of step with cloud computing due to the heavy Windows orientation of its Azure cloud, although it has also broadened it to include open source technologies such as PHP.

Microsoft now supports many Internet and Web services standards but hasn't always advocated open standards at key junction points for competing systems, such as Linux and Unix. And it wants to continue charging for each copy of Windows used on a server, even if Windows is running in a virtual machine. Cloud computing thrives on the ability to proliferate virtual machines without incurring a linear run up in license charges.