Content management SaaS vendor SpringCM today unveiled its platform-as-a-service offering -- establishing a Force.com-like venue for content-management apps developed by SpringCM and its partners. The company targets customers like publishers, law firms, telecoms, brokerages and government contractors, and has enlisted partners like document and packaging giant Pitney Bowes. Pitney Bowes is using the platform to roll out a Freedom of Information Act tool for government agencies and case management professionals.

Meanwhile, last week, Univa UD announced a cloud-based extension to its core UniCluster offering -- open source software for provisioning and managing high-performance computing clusters. Univa's new addition to the market is UniCloud, which relies on Amazon Web Services and the e-commerce giant's EC2 model, giving customers a pay-per-use HPC, billed per computing hour.

So, we've got humble document management on one end of the spectrum. On the other end, we've got high-performance computing. Somewhere in between are the myriad productivity, financial, organizational, media development, engineering and enterprise infrastructure software most of the rest of us rely on to get things done during the workday -- and which are all in varying degrees of migrating to cloud-based platforms. (Cloud-based CRM, from what I hear, is already being handled to some degree of success by somebody.)

As a result, is it any wonder that IDC recently predicted that cloud spending will grow at a CAGR of 27 percent through 2012, while the rest of the IT world will grow at 7 percent?

Now, I loathe the industry's fascination with vague, ill-conceived buzzwords as much as the next guy. But as we all know, sometimes in business (and especially in the tech business) we've just got to bite our tongues and put up with their use, poorly defined as they may be -- especially when we're talking about one of the few healthy areas of the IT economy.

*OK, there's one buzzword, as Churchill may have said, up with which I will not put -- ever. It's "on premise".

What's the problem? (Please tell me you're not really asking this.) A premise (singular) is an idea. Premises (plural) refers to a space of land. Even Wikipedia's got it right -- until some joker changes the entry.