I don't know how I missed hearing that they applied for this back at the beginning of the month, but then I didn't realize that they own the domain cloudcomputing.com (note that they still have the "TM" marker on the phrase as of 0700 this morning on the site... a little disingenuous since they had only ever applied for it), either, so apparently I've been a little slow on the uptake in all this heat. At any rate, it's all but over now.

Although I use the term frequently myself (hey... I'm prior art! Cool.) I have to admit I'm getting a little marketing fatigue from hearing it so frequently, and I can almost agree with the Slashdot poster who bemoans Dell's failure since it would mean we'd finally stop hearing it from everyone else all the time (myself included).

The most ironic thing is that Dell isn't providing anything at all to do with even the most broadly popular conception of cloud computing in the first place... they have basically rebranded their data center consulting services as "cloud computing" solutions.

At any rate, I agree with most commenters who so far have been taking the line that this represents a breath of fresh air in the increasingly insane efforts by corporations to patent and trademark everything in sight in hopes of making a buck off it someday, whether they developed it or not.