In such hectic times, when each new consumer product or service is rapidly outrivaled by another, and innovation and instancy are the prerequisites to survive the market wars, it is unthinkable that new services such as cloud computing lack the proper tools for moving data from one cloud to another.

“Users must be able to change their cloud provider as fast and easily as changing one’s Internet or mobile-phone provider has become in many places,” said Commissioner Neelie Kroes at the launch of Microsoft’s cloud computing center in Brussels on Tuesday. “Interoperability is essential for the cloud to be fair, open and competitive.

Yesterday, Microsoft opened a Cloud and Interoperability Center in Brussels, as an impulse for the adoption of cloud computing on the European continent. Microsoft’s center will serve a various number of clients, such as government agencies and small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The standardization envisaged by the European Union will help the cloud market to run smoother as the demand will meet the offer; with standardization, companies will be able to move data from one cloud to another with the necessary IT tools which in turn will determine diversity among cloud computing service providers and opportunities for new players to join in.

“We should never allow the sort of legal or technical barriers that have plagued single market efforts in sectors like electricity,” EU Commissioner for the digital agenda Neelie Kroes said Tuesday at Microsoft’s launch event. “In other words, interoperability is essential for the cloud to be fair, open and competitive,” she added.

It is hard to imagine how top players in the cloud industry will adjust to EU regulations, as this will translate into losses for them. According to a recent InformationWeek report, state and local governments in the U.S. are adopting cloud computing at a faster rate than the federal government.