A few people have published interesting short videos to help explain the cloud computing concept: 

• Cloud Computing Plain and Simple – a Plain English guide (this one has an accompanying comic book version)
• InfoClipz explains a few categories of vendor offerings in cloud services, which helps understand the evolving market.

Economic Opportunity

Cloud computing economies of scale and lowered fixed costs for the user are attractive to businesses and governments alike because of the potential positive economic impact across all sectors of the European economy.  Some economic analysis is presented in these sources:

• “The Economic Impact of Cloud Computing on Business Creation, Employment and Output in Europe”.  This study concluded that the adoption of cloud computing solutions could create a few hundred thousand new small-and medium-sized businesses in Europe, which in turn could have a substantial impact on unemployment rates and GDP growth.
• The EU portion of the IDC study “The Economic Impact of IT, Software and the Microsoft Ecosystem” estimates that “cloud services could add $109 billion EUR ($160 billion) in net new business revenues to the region’s economy between the end of 2009 and the end of 2013.”

ENISA

The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), supported by a group of subject matter experts, conducted a Cloud Computing Security Risk Assessment.  This report provides an independent and objective analysis of the benefits and risks of cloud computing, and provides recommendations.  This video presents several points from the report.

Microsoft.com

Microsoft publishes numerous materials about all aspects of cloud computing.  Main materials at the microsoft.com/cloud site include links to Steve Ballmer’s March 4, 2010 speech describing the five dimensions of cloud computing, and current technology evolutions in the context of developments over the years.  Government policy issues are addressed by General Counsel Brad Smith in materials at this site. 
Key information is available regarding Microsoft’s cloud technologies (Global Foundation Services, regarding data center infrastructure; the Windows Azure platform; and Online Productivity Services) as well as common customer and industry interests (security, privacy, and interoperability).

Open Grid Forum-Europe

OGF-Europe (Open Grid Forum-Europe), which is funded by the European Commission, is playing a leading role in championing the adoption and evolution of distributed computing based on open standards.  OGF-Europe is aligned with OGF (Open Grid Forum), the global forum where people in business, government and research work together to ensure that the infrastructure of the knowledge-based economy is open and barrier free.  OGF-Europe’s Cloudscape events in 2009 and 2010 have focused on interoperability issues and practical use cases for cloud adopters.

mindsintheclouds

This series of videos at mindsintheclouds.org provides a set of perspectives from government and industry