Special section: Software architectures and application development environments for Cloud computing

A number of excellent technical contributions that significantly advance the state-of-the-art of software architectures and application development environments for cloud computing are compiled. Yu et al. in the paper titled 'A Novel Watermarking Method for Software Protection in the Cloud', identify an insider threat to access control, which is not completely eliminated by the usual techniques of encryption, cryptographic hashes, and access control labels. Zhang et al. in the paper titled 'A Trust-based Noise Injection Strategy for Privacy Protection in Cloud' present a novel trust-based noise injection strategy for privacy protection in the Cloud. Authors in the paper titled 'The Cloud Adoption Toolkit: Supporting Cloud Adoption Decisions in the Enterprise' present a Cloud Adoption Toolkit that supports decision making during the adoption of Cloud computing in enterprises.