Ning CEO on how start-ups can hit the ground running

Competitive advantages with cloud computing

At the TechCrunch Cloud Computing Roundtable in Mountain View, Calif., Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning, says that cloud computing can give start-ups an edge by allowing them to focus on the application their business is producing, and then gives them far wider distribution--through sites like Facebook--than was available just a few years ago. Amitabh Srivastava, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Windows Azure group, adds that the cloud eliminates hardware headaches, an important consideration for start-ups that may not even have funding yet. Moderator: Erick Schonfeld, co-editor TechCrunch