Not everything is best suited for the cloud. I've used Evernote for a few years and always thought their performance was impressive.
http://blog.evernote.com/tech/2011/05/17/architectural-digest/#
Take aways:
- Shards – protection in silos
- Single-tier architecture; No remote storage
- Evernote's business model and cost structure. Evernote is notable
for their pioneering of the
freemium model \<http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/147/next-tech-remember-the-money.html\>__, based on the idea from their CEO: *The easiest way to get 1 million people paying is to get 1 billion people using. *Evernote is designed to become profitable at a 1% conversion rate.*