It seems that Apple is pushing cloud integration all the way now, but also that they have no interest in providing the ability to choose between their own server-side offering (iCloud) and what other companies may have to bring to the table. That seems to make all the nice iCloud client features unusable for certain people (such as Europeans that are forbidden by law to upload certain documents to data centers in North Carolina).
Is it in any way possible to trick OS X and iOS devices into talking to servers of my choosing other than Apple's, at least for part of the services ? Is there any documentation how iCloud is built? Does it use any standardized protocols at all?