@John, just to add to your email, how much have we done?  I can tell you from my side I've spend at least 14 months each on projects over the years which would have been cloud based services.
 
- My favourite was the one to beat all international voip services that all kenyans such as cybers etc love to buy from international vendors. I implemented an asterisk based system right here in Nairobi that I even tested whilst on a trip to visit friends in the UK, the voice clarity was that of of tiered services. I also tested with friends in mombasa, kisumu etc even had a voip handset connected directly to a safaricom broadband router. Funny that I could call a friend in mombasa just using a simple number like 041. Eventual idea was to combine a skype type of service with the gateway. The next plan was to talk to any telcos who would offer local competitve rates thus eliminating all those international voip vendors, but when I looked at the license model which made me a gateway operator and a license of Ksh 15million, I dropped the project.
 
- Creating a photo developer services for studios. No more need to take the digital images physically to the studio for development, I even talked to a photostudio and we tested on a external setup for a shortwhile. Bandwidth constraints kicked in, and project dropped. However still a chance coming in the future.
 
- I can list at least 3 other serious projects including one that I was a few days away from going online about 1.5years ago, which was video. The gateway was set until I ran into an issue about encoder usage rights, I dropped this until I comeup with my own system.
 
Everywhere I look, the cloud is still calling. Now that I've banned using any full systems until I can develop mine, I find it more rewarding that somewhere in this whole circle of technology I may hold the key to the next thing that will entirely change our lives.
 
If only others would see how much we are capable of doing, you don't even bother to look at what the international competition is.
 
Rgds.