The best hardware, software, and cloud services of the year
January 9th, 2013
The drive for ease and flexibility is a big part of the industry's obsession with the cloud, and we were not immune to it. The various cloud services are on the list because they made things simpler than filling out the requisition forms, buying your own machines, and even configuring the stacks. You push some buttons on a Web page and you have root. Providing ease wasn't enough, though, because the industry is full of clouds that do that. We ended up awarding Joyent Cloud and Windows Azure, two clouds that offered faster machines at lower prices. That makes it easier to present the bill to your CFO.
