This is the Japanese forum. I'm writing up on benefits of using liferay as a development framework on a cloud.
With departure of Rob Johnson from VMWare, it seems their attempt at creating/marketing development environment
on a cloud didn't go too far. I think the main problem is that programmers don't want to develop programs on a web
browser - I for one don't. :-)

http://blog.springsource.org/2012/07/03/oh-the-places-youll-go/

Going back to creating and deploying war and ear files on web container on a clould isn't too great either because the
framework is tightly bound to an application. When a technology changes, framework changes and application have
to be rewritten over again. This really isn't what users want.

Trying to SaaS everything isn't that great either because companies do want to keep their strategic applications in-house.
We use SaaS to do non-strategic tasks at lower cost. Unfortunately, this isn't the market most system integrator are
interested.

I'm advocating that liferay on the cloud is the next development paradigm because developers can remotely deploy
service component (aka portlets) using liferay IDE while portal administrator can upload theme/layout portlets and patches
from liferay's control panel.

It's also very easy to setup liferay on a cloud because cloud provider (company internal or in Internet) can offer HA services
on their platform instead of system integrator setting up liferay cluster servers.

We've moved all our liferay installation on to a virtual machine and we're now going to move all our departmental servers
hosting virtual machine to a virtual machine in one of our datacenters. Many developers, portal administrators, and users
aren't even deeply aware that it's moving around.

Planning on finishing up my slides by end of this month - have to go talk to several clients this month again. :-)