This post is in continuation of my earlier post, Washies for the Worst Cloud Vendor.
The best cloud Washies awardees take a bow. Appirio announced and toasted the winners of in a fun filled ceremony. As per a blog post by Narinder Singh of Appirio, the 2011 winners are:
The best cloud Washies awardees take a bow. Appirio announced and toasted the winners of in a fun filled ceremony. As per a blog post by Narinder Singh of Appirio, the 2011 winners are:
- The biggest overall cloud washer - Oracle: This mega-vendor couldn’t utter the word “cloud” without some kind of skeptical comment until recently, at which time they jumped wholeheartedly on the bandwagon.
- The worst case of cloud washed advertising - Microsoft: “To the cloud!” During a television commercial staged with two people bored at an airport, the world saw this company introduce “the cloud” to consumers. Until then it was simply known as “the Internet.” While Microsoft does have some legit cloud solutions in their portfolio, these and their other TV commercials handed them the win in this category.
- The most cloud washed statement - Larry Ellison and Oracle: This one was a toss-up, but ultimately, Oracle’s Larry Ellison edged out the competition with his past Churchill Club sound bite, "...we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do.”
- The biggest personal cloud washer - Larry Ellison: This was a controversial category that perhaps rightly so raised the ire of some of the nominees, but we have to give the award to Larry. We were a bit surprised that one of the nominees launched a social media campaign to win the award, and had he not set up a bot to auto vote for himself, he may have taken home the prize. But it wouldn’t be right to reward a cheater and, in hindsight, he probably didn’t deserve to be nominated to this category in the first place, so Larry Ellison earned himself his second award of the night.
- The most enthusiastic use of the word cloud - salesforce.com: Love for the cloud can sometimes lead to excessive use of the word and other over the top behavior - even among true cloud companies. We freely admit that Appirio often sits in that camp - everything we touch seems to be incomplete without a cloud image. However, salesforce.com edged us out for this category win. Given their strong voice in cloud advocacy, we respectfully accept defeat.
