I had an adrenaline-rich opportunity to make my pitch for cloud computing, with a strict time limit of eight minutes, before a sizable audience and with subsequent (live and unrehearsed) interrogation from a panel of CIOs at this week's Cloud Connect event in Mountain View.

I freely admit that any of my usual forty-minute talks conceals a half-day seminar screaming to break free: I had to wonder if I'd have to do a FedEx commercial to avoid getting gonged after less than five hundred seconds. (A six-minute dry run gave me hope, but it's hard to resist telling a good story.)

Well, it can be done. Feel free to download the charts and let me know if you'd like any additional details.