Microsoft and IBM, estranged over IBM's high-handedness in dictating a seemingly innocuous Cloud Manifesto that's read as Big Blue's attempt to stamp itself the ultimate leader of the cloud movement met Monday and parlayed at the Cloud Computing Expo in New York.

Tuesday morning they released what they called "minutes" of the "informal meeting."

A formal trade organization is in the making.

Reuven Cohen at the Cloud Computing Expo floor on Tuesday. 2nd International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo had a record attendance.

Here's the statement:

"Representatives of CCIF, CloudCamp, Cisco, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and the IEEE-ISTO met while attending the Cloud Computing Expo in New York. Other companies were invited but were unable to attend, generally due to the short notice. The companies agreed on a shared goal to promote use and awareness of open and interoperable cloud computing. The group brainstormed several ideas including the possibility to build on the momentum created by CloudCamp. Another topic was the ability to enable participants, from individuals and companies, both large and small, to be able to contribute to and use the results of broad community collaboration. Additionally, the possibility of a trade association or marketing association for cloud computing was discussed but no specific actions were agreed. The final topic was the need to have broader participation from the community in this discussion."

Amazon CTO Werner Vogels spoke at the show but apparently couldn't be drawn into the discussion and Google, which was originally a signatory but dropped out before the Manifesto was officially released on Monday, has yet to re-up. Reportedly it was lacking certain internal sign-offs.

The young Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum (CCIF), another original signatory, pulled out over the weekend in response to Microsoft's criticism that the Manifesto was a closed backstreet affair that didn't allow for additional input.

Reuven Cohen, the head of the Enomaly start-up and a founder of CCIF, says he has been drafted to give a keynote at the show Wednesday that calls for a new trade association focused on marketing and advancing the cloud industry. It's supposed to be "truly open and collaborative" in which "companies big or small will have a voice." They will be asking for input - at least nominally.

According to the opencloudmanifesto.org site that's now live, the Manifesto currently has 76 subscribers including AT&T, Abiquo, Accario, Akamai, ALTIC. Org, AMD, Aptana, Appistry, Arista Networks, Barcelona Supercomputing Center Blend digital, Boomi, Business Logic, Cast Iron, Cisco, CSC, Dilgenter, the Eclipse Foundation, Elastra, EMC, Enomaly, Engine Yard, enStratus, F5, Global Media Solutions, GoGrid, Heroku, Hyperic, IBM, In Cloud Company SL, Juniper, LongJump, Luminis Innovation Consulting, ManualsMania, Metadot, MyCube9.com, newScale, Northwest A&F University (Shanxi, China), North Carolina State University, Nirvanix, Novell, the Object Management Group, Okuri Ventures, Open Cloud Consortium, Open-XChange, Prgmr.com, PointStar, QuadraForte, Rackspace, Rails Machine, Red Hat, Tech4Quant, Terremark Worldwide, the Hot Air Channel, the Reservoir Project, Trend Micro, RightScale, rPath, Saasmania, S3 Graphics, Soasta, Sogeti, Sun, Synapses, Technical University of Catalonia, Telefonica, the Open Group, Velneo SA, Venue Software, Veredas, VMware, Voxeo, VPS.net and Zenoss.