Just to clarify, my position on security and cloud computing are mutually exclusive. Further, I am skeptical of companies who simply suggest that I should trust them simple "because."

Your attribution regarding my skepticism (Bill) in regards to these two disruptive innovations is accurate, but I find it very interesting that the Googleites somehow downplayed the security implications of one to seemingly distract from the other.

If I recall correctly, Google doesn't rely much on virtualization at all to power their infrastructure, so I can understand making this issue more diminutive in the response, but they didn't actually address how they go about making the cloud option more secure.

Rather, they represent that because they are "always under attack" with large volumes, we should simply trust that they are more secure. I might argue they are more efficient at certain things, but where is the transparency that reflects these assertions?

Oh, it must be because they "build in security from the ground up!" ;)

Also, the last time I looked, the Intertubes feature more than just email.

"The Cloud" and the options it offers is certainly a viable and robust choice when considering how, where and who delivers service to your company, but the abstraction it offers -- much like the notion of the "simplicity" of virtualization (if you must lump them together) -- belies the risk.

/hoff