Which is really just a grotesquely long-winded way of saying that AT&T is joining the burgeoning market of cloud-computing service providers. Like Google (GOOG), IBM (IBM), and Amazon.com (AMZN) before it, the company is offering computer networking and storage delivered over the Internet, on demand. But with one important advantage: AT&T (T) runs the backbone network that will connect its customers to those services. Presumably, that means one fewer potential failure point–a compelling proposition, especially for businesses that have suffered through Amazon’s Simple Storage Service outages.

Which is really just a grotesquely long-winded way of saying that AT&T is joining the burgeoning market of cloud-computing service providers. Like Google (GOOG), IBM (IBM), and Amazon.com (AMZN) before it, the company is offering computer networking and storage delivered over the Internet, on demand. But with one important advantage: AT&T (T) runs the backbone network that will connect its customers to those services. Presumably, that means one fewer potential failure point–a compelling proposition, especially for businesses that have suffered through Amazon’s Simple Storage Service outages.