I would think staffing a team to maintain hardware in an IT Department is much more expensive than paying Amazon to run the backend. Thinking of many corporations, all have data centers, IT staff, hardware, software etc, and here is Amazon with a single data center capable of providing all this infrastructure at what has to be a competitive price for them to survive. This has to be a better option for many companies, especially small companies. My behemoth company is constantly looking for off shoring opportunities to further reduce costs so smaller companies may not have this as an option. This seems like a simple decision in using Amazon's services. Comparing to the 90's and dot.com bubble, at least this is a tangible business model and not a dream like many of those companies back then were.

Tethering using the USB cable...got an app that works fine there with Verizon DroidX. I can work very efficiently this way and make calls through Google Voice btw.

Wow someone that really understands the constitution. You should run for president!