As expected, the event saw a number of major cloud services being launched with cloud infrastructure management software and services company 6fusion, announcing the release of its next generation UC6 Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) federation platform; and secure cloud hosting company Firehost, revealing the launch of its European cloud. However, the real meat to the event was hearing IT experts approaching cloud computing as a maturing technology, demonstrating quality high-end and hybrid cloud services, and debating how it weighs up against competitive alternatives.

Moving beyond product and technical features, it finally feels like the ‘cloud haze’ for many vendors has cleared and they are refocusing on the real issues, the business benefits and what role cloud has as part of the wider business strategy. As with any trend, the issue for many vendors now is how they will differentiate themselves as aggressive competition rises. Unsurprisingly, the datacentre market was one that was out in force at the show, with key players Equinix, Interxion and Telehouse all launching new cloud offerings and initiatives.

Steep competition amongst datacentres has been spurred by advancements in virtualisation frameworks from VMware, Red Hat, Citrix and Microsoft. Those who attended the show with a clear objective to find a solution to make that transition to the cloud will have left with more questions than answers, due to the sheer number of new and sophisticated services now being made available in the cloud.

What last week confirmed for the IT industry is that as the cloud market matures, some aspects will become clearer but as cloud enters the phase of reality, competition from hybrid and traditional technologies will still place a vital role in business.

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While one Plan B was busy winning a Brit award, another was going off the rails. The Nokia Plan B shareholder revolt has been called off. It burned brightly with the fires of conviction for two days before fizzling out.

The shareholders were objecting to the decision to jump into bed with Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 – turning Nokia into an OEM hardware producer rather than the most innovative mobile phone company on the planet. There has been some debate on whether or not this will be a good move for Nokia, but the company is certainly paying the price for falling behind the rest of the market on its mobile operating system, Symbian.

Despite the support that many shareholders had apparently pledged (Plan B claim a large number – though not precise), the project has been derailed by institutional investors. These investors are mammoth organisations wielding a lot of power in companies as shareholders, but with a legal obligation not to take big gambles with their clients’ money they could not possibly support the plan. Without their support there was nothing that Plan B could realistically achieve.

There is also the small matter that the Plan B group would not be able to take charge until May, by which time Nokia should already have started paring down its software teams and many wheels would already be in motion.

If somebody wanted to save the Symbian OS, they would be better off inventing a time machine.

It’s not the first time Nokia has shunned MWC, but in all seriousness; has the show just become too big? The press list might be enormous but so is the price tag. It seems to me that the show has become a parody of itself and certainly not in a good way. With the big guns making announcements this week, what are we left to look forward to at the actual show? Some demos? Some girls in bikinis doing the can-can?

In my humble opinion, MWC has lost its way and is out of touch with how news is both reported and consumed. Everyone who is anyone might be heading to Barcelona, but it’s a bit like going to your in-laws – do you actually want to go or are you going because you feel you should?

With such massive hype around cloud computing, understanding what really interests people that you want to influence is key. @RuthJones did a similar experiement at InfoSecurity and the results were something of an eye opener for the people we met with afterwards I can tell you!

We’ll be giving you a sneak peak at the top level results at the end of every day, courtsey of @mpwatson. But if you want the really juicy stuff you’ll have to meet up with us – bribery, moi?

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