In an unusual display of concern, the president of Google Enterprise has made a public statement saying there should be no cause for alarm about Google Apps and its cloud computing infrastructure following a major data breach by a China-based attack on Google and 20 other large enterprise companies. David Girouard, Google's president of Google Enterprise, said in a personally written blog post that Google suffered a massive cyber attack last month. According to the corporate Google blog , the attackers came away from Google with stolen intellectual property. Sponsor Girouard downplayed the impact of the attack. He said Google "believes" the breach did not affect Google Apps customers. Girouard, obviously concerned about the backlash, said the incident may raise some questions about Google security. He said that Google is introducing additional security measures to help ensure the safety of customer's data. There are consistent questions about cloud computing's potential security flaws. Girouard is well aware of this. He tries to make it clear that this incident was not an assault on cloud computing. "It was an attack on the technology infrastructure of major corporations in sectors as diverse as finance, technology, media, and chemical. The route the attackers used was malicious software used to infect personal computers. Any computer connected to the Internet can fall victim to such attacks. While some intellectual property on our corporate network was compromised, we believe our customer cloud-based data remains secure." Girouard comes close to making a sales pitch in his statement, saying, in fact, that Google customers benefit from the Internet giant's investment in data security. "While any company can be subject to such an attack, those who use our cloud services benefit from our data security capabilities. At Google, we invest massive amounts of time and money in security. Nothing is more important to us. Our response to this attack shows that we are dedicated to protecting the businesses and users who have entrusted us with their sensitive email and document information. We are telling you this because we are committed to transparency, accountability, and maintaining your trust." This is an incredible incident that will lead to some major issues for Google Enterprise over the next several months. As the battle heats up for cloud computing supremacy, competitors will pick at this incident as an example of why a company that's more security conscious should be trusted with customer data, not a search engine giant. Discuss

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Google's Top Enterprise Executive: Do Not Be Alarmed by Chinese Cyber Attack

In his keynote this morning, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff continued his critique on software companies for their lack of development and sense of entitlement. And not surprisingly, the full-on pitch continued for cloud computing with a parade of executives showing the applications they developed on Force.com . About 19,000 people attended Dreamforce, the annual Salesforce.com event. Partners lined up to get on stage. David Girouard of Google showed a map with all their customers around the globe. He recounted a story with Eric Schmidt, who was astounded by the frustrations that CIO's expressed about the architecture they inherited. An Accenture executive said that cloud computing is here to stay. He showed the company's applications on Force.com . The Black Crowes performed last night. The pitch is fever high. Sponsor What does this all say about the market? Is this an event that marks the point where cloud computing goes mainstream? Have we reached the apex of cloud computing hype? I asked the question on Twitter: Gartner sees the hype this way: Regardless, this has been a monumental week for cloud computing. The long established software companies have now lined up with their offering. Microsoft launched Azure . Salesforce.com unveiled Salesforce Chatter , Sales Cloud 2 and Service Cloud 2. IBM announced a cloud analytics platform that leverages Cognos, its business intelligence suite. The more established companies carry the benefit of long established customer channels. IBM and Microsoft fit into this camp. Additionally, Microsoft appears to get it. The Azure platform integrates some open-source components. These companies face their own challenges as much internally as from the customer world. But their presence also means that cloud computing is close to being accepted in the enterprise mainstream. Salesforce.com is a more interesting animal. Benioff is a very aggressive CEO. Business Week is calling him " The King of the Cloud." He is never shy to lampoon the established software companies in the market. He calls out his competitors like Sugar CRM , which is fighting right back with its own campaign: Behind The Smokescreen , a play on Benioff's new book: "Behind The Cloud." Benioff has to show off his partners. He never misses an opportunity to tell you how many customers he has. In a way, he has to play this role. He has the big players running. He has to keep them running, on the defensive, so he can move in with Chatter across the enterprise. That's the trick right now for Benioff. Moving as fast as he possibly can to gain that permanent traction. The hype is peaking. It's a different game for the entire market. It's a race now to win the mainstream. Discuss

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Cloud Computing: Where to Next?