SANTA BARBARA, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 02/11/13 -- The dramatic rise in cloud adoption in the past year has transformed the way businesses approach the cloud. Cloud use has moved from secret to strategic, with businesses of all sizes relying on the cloud for business-critical applications. As a result, RightScale® Inc., the leader in cloud management, today announced significant milestones that signal the critical role that cloud management plays in today's cloud strategy.

More Companies Choosing RightScale
RightScale's solutions have driven the surge in cloud management adoption, and the company reports that it has added over 250 companies to their global customer portfolio in the past year. Prominent enterprises across a number of different verticals now rely on RightScale's "single pane of glass" cloud management, including Caltech, Care Innovations (an Intel-GE company), Citrix Online, Conde Nast, Coty, Equinix, Fox Digital Media, Inmobi, JWT, Leo Burnett, Softbank Technology, Telepictures Productions (a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company), Tibco and Zurich Insurance.

Broadest Portfolio of Cloud Providers
As a pioneer in cloud management, RightScale enables users to access the broadest cloud portfolio, with support for 15 public and private cloud providers. In the past year, the company has deepened its partnership with Rackspace (NYSE: RAX), integrating RightScale's cloud management with Rackspace Open Cloud powered by OpenStack. RightScale also offered launch day integration with Google Compute Engine and Windows Azure, allowing beta customers to leverage RightScale's technology to manage applications. And RightScale continues to work closely with Amazon Web Services to support its broad array of cloud services.

World Economic Forum Recognition for Innovation
RightScale was named a 2013 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, a highly-regarded honor limited to the most innovative startup companies worldwide aiming to transform the future of businesses and society. RightScale was recognized for its visionary leadership and proven technology that enables businesses to easily deploy and manage their applications across public, private and hybrid cloud environments.

Outlook for the Year Ahead in Cloud Computing
According to a report by IDC Research, the cloud management business is poised to earn $3.6 billion in revenues by 2016. Cloud management is a part of a new class of vital technologies; IDC Research's poll indicates that 75 percent of enterprise IT buyers currently believe the cloud will require them to purchase management software beyond what is currently available in-house.

"More forward-thinking companies than ever are embracing the cloud as an enabler for agility and scalability," said Michael Crandell, CEO of RightScale. "From improving your time-to-market for delivering new products and services to driving more revenue, RightScale's cloud management provides a powerful platform to help you achieve business goals leveraging new approaches to IT."

As companies of all sizes are driving a "cloud-first" approach to IT, RightScale has identified the top three key trends to for in the year ahead:

• Multi-Cloud is the New Normal: Nearly all enterprises are working towards a hybrid cloud solution. A multi-cloud approach makes it easier for enterprises and startups alike to choose the right infrastructure for each workload -- such as clouds with geographical advantages (clouds close to customers) or that offer particular performance characteristics, compliance capabilities, support or managed services. In 2013, more enterprises will be using a combination of multiple clouds, both public and private, to meet their needs.
• Secret to Strategic: While many companies start by using cloud for discrete projects, in 2013, visionary companies will be leveraging a cloud-first approach across their IT portfolio. Solutions such as RightScale's can provide IT organizations with a single, consistent way to deploy to the cloud, manage and govern this larger set of apps while controlling overall cloud costs.
• The Middlemen Gold Rush: Key players in the application supply chain (digital agencies, MSPs, service providers) will accelerate their path to the cloud so that they can increase agility and lower costs as they deliver and host applications for clients. While there have been early signs of the emergence of this market, the "gold rush" will take effect as these middle layer organizations try to ensure they maximize their value and remain relevant to their customers, by embracing the cloud.

Introducing RightScale Compute in 2013
To better educate current and prospective customers on best practices in cloud adoption and management, RightScale is hosting RightScale Compute 2013, the only conference that brings together stories from real cloud users and leading cloud providers. RightScale Compute will be held on April 23-26 at Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. For more information and to attend RightScale Compute, please visit www.rightscalecompute.com.

About RightScale
RightScale® Inc., cloud management enables organizations to easily deploy and manage business-critical applications across public, private, and hybrid clouds. RightScale provides efficient configuration, monitoring, automation, and governance of cloud computing infrastructure and applications. RightScale supports 15 public and private clouds, which include AWS, Rackspace Open Cloud, Windows Azure, Google Compute Engine, HP, SoftLayer, Logicworks, IDCF and Datapipe as well as private clouds based on OpenStack and CloudStack. Since 2006, millions of servers have been launched with the RightScale solution by leading enterprises including the Associated Press, CBS Interactive, Intercontinental Hotels Group, PBS, and Zynga.

RightScale is a registered trademark of RightScale, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Other product or company names mentioned may be trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.