As part of the work I’m doing to help assemble the programme for this year’s CloudBeat conference (you should come, you’ll love it), I had a guest post published on VentureBeat earlier today.

The big vendor extravaganzas – the Dreamforces and OpenWorlds and I/Os of the world – wrap attendees in a warm and fuzzy blanket of free swag and free beer and free rock concerts. They might – just for a moment – succeed in persuading you that they have everything you could ever need. They do cloud. They know cloud. Some, unbelievably, will even sell you the cloud in a box!

The real world is more complex, and more hybrid. Few companies, big or small, will buy everything they need from a single IT supplier. And that’s what the post is about.

Yes, it’s a plug for CloudBeat (where we’ll be assembling some great stories of customer success)… but the underlying point is valid whether you consider coming along to CloudBeat or not.

But if you do want to come to California at the end of November, then I’ll see you there…

Image by Flickr user ‘Ardonik‘