PaaS Platforms Use Proven Architectures

"These companies [Amazon, Google, salesforce.com] have designed, implemented, and most importantly, run their critical business operations on these platforms. That in and of itself is more important than all the vaporware and marketing hype any other vendor comes up with. Rather than having to get customers to believe that a solution works via marketing and then force it down their IT staff's throats, Google and Amazon are basically saying 'Hey why not use stuff that we use and have proven can scale up to handle huge loads and huge amounts of data?'

...

I can base my decision to use a Google or Amazon service based on their actual track record in delivering these services and eating their own dog food, since they are trying to monetize their existing investment in proven highly distributed and scalable infrastructures."

http://www.sleberknight.com/blog/sleberkn/entry/cloud_oriented_architecture_coa