The future of application development in the cloud?

Earlier this week, ebiz asked the question, what will be the future of application development in cloud computing? Obviously, it's useful to consider that the cloud is real, it makes complete economic sense, and it's here to stay.

In my comment, I brought up the following analogy. In 1910, 95 percent of electricity in the U.S. that was consumed in business was generated on premises. That's why so many factories were located near water, to drive hydro electric power generation. But by 1930, 95 percent of electricity that was consumed in business was generated by the electric grid (the cloud of electricity).

Why? Simply put: It was significantly cheaper.

Once we accept this inevitable trend towards the cloud, the next question becomes which tools are going to offer the most cost-effective way to build modern Ajax-based Web apps?

Remember, the decision makers driving all of this are the folks who have to pay for IT services. They're going to demand the cloud AND the use of development tools (for user satisfaction and productivity reasons) that allow for the creation of Web-based apps that perform like desktop apps in terms of speed, RIA, and fine granular control (i.e. Ajax apps).

Naturally, the tools they choose will be the ones that make powerful, Ajax-enabled apps possible. And (you know this was coming) I can't let that go without reminding you that our soon-to-be-released Alpha Five Version 10 is (as far as we know) the first tool to make it possible to build robust Ajax-enabled apps for the cloud without having to write a stitch of code.