Joyent in Forbes

tlvx:

That’s certainly true for Joyent, a 22-person firm located in Sausalito, Calif., that is running the IT operations of more than 10,000 customers. Most of Joyent’s customers are small Web companies, including many Facebook applications developers. But Major League Baseball’s Web site, MLB.com, also rents server space from Joyent, scaling up its use during baseball season and scaling it down in the autumn.

As for the other small fry, Staten says, it is too early to pick out potential winners as the industry evolves. But he’s confident that by the time larger customers start to look at utility computing as an attractive option, a company like Enki or Joyent may have grown into a real competitor.

“This is classic disruptive innovation, where the mainstream dismisses the product and small companies have time to create a real differentiated value,” says Staten. “When this technology becomes really robust five to seven years from now, the doubters may not be able to compete anymore.”

Tiny Firms Offer Big Computing Services, Forbes.com