I've written before (as have others) about the dangers of an "either/or" mentality with various technologies, including the "cloud". Companies are starting to understand this message - I've been traveling a lot this year from Alaska to California, from the UK to Copenhagen, Denmark, talking with companies that are implementing Hybrid systems, and giving presentations on how to implement one.

I'm doing another of these Monday of next week, in Boston here in the US. You can read about it and register here (it's a free event) and learn not only more about Hybrid systems using on-premises databases and Windows Azure, but more about SQL Server as well from other speakers.