AT&T (News - Alert) is the latest company to introduce a cloud computing service, providing network-based computing and storage services. It joins Google, International Business Machines (IBM) and Amazon.com (News - Alert), among others, now active in the market. Verizon Communications said it plans to enter the market in the first half of 2009.

 

AT&T seems to be aiming its services at companies and organizations with unpredictable or predictable spikes in end user volume, such as retailers. AT&T likely also will integrate communications features as part of its offer, in particular flexible bandwidth, not simply compute cycles and storage.