Great article. It's probably one of the first to talk about start-ups tackling cloud computing as an offering rather than as an end-user. You hit it right on when talking about the "big players" being like ocean liners, taking days (weeks or months if we are talking about true technical architecture changes or additions) to make a small turn.

If your company is looking to enter this space, I feel you may be behind already, unless you can do some of the things that Ken mentions. There will be copy-cats and innovators that jump "into the cloud" and their offerings may have nuances that better the big players or even some of the active large players already out there.

The company that I evangelize (GoGrid & ServePath) does not fall into that "startup" niche. Our cloud product competes on many levels with Amazon EC2 but what we bring is 7 years of understanding the hosting industry, as the parent company, ServePath, is a dedicated hosting provider. I have been touting the fact that we actually hit the "sweet spot" between the cloud and dedicated hosting. See http://www.gogrid.com for more information.

I guarantee you will see many direct and indirect competitors emerging in these spaces. Your guidelines are great! I just think they may be too late for many.

-Michael
Blogger – http://blog.gogrid.com

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