This article from Waxy on porting Google App Engine to Amazon EC2 points out an interesting use case of how the next generation of IT tools will look.

• As companies deploy more of their systems on the cloud, they’ll need both on ramps and off ramps
• As on-premise infrastructure becomes less viable, cloud-to-cloud tools will be necessary for backup, redundancy, and as a guard against vendor lock in
• The new ecosystems available with the advent of cloud computing provide “fresh powder” to develop the next generation of IT tools and utilities

For the past few years, enterprises have already dabbling with the cloud in its various forms - development environments, collaboration and messaging, using established SaaS vendors like Salesforce.  These In 2009, they are starting to move key systems like email entirely to the cloud, and are building business applications that run primarily on the cloud.  This movement requires useful utilties to be effective.

• Cloud Backup Tools (shameless plug for our Google Docs Backup tool)
• Migration Tools (shameless plug for our Google Contact Import tool)
• Management Tools (like RightScale)

A new wave of products will be coming forth to enable this movement.  Our approach is to leverage our experience working with real companies, large and small alike, to discover the key pain points and gaps in their implementation of cloud technology - and then build software solutions to those gaps.

What’s yours?