It amazes me how so many things that appear to be new are really old, and cloud computing is one of them. In the days of mainframe computers and "dumb" terminals, all applications and data resided on a big mainframe computer and your terminal was attached via a wired network. If the network was disrupted or the mainframe was down for any reason, you just sat and looked at a green screen until the problem was fixed.
Today we are being told that "cloud" computing is the future for both wired and wireless devices and that all of our applications, data, and information will be stored in the cloud so we can get to it from any type of wired or wireless terminal, dumb or smart. Those pushing the concept of cloud computing are not the IT professionals in the corporations nor are they those building smart devices. Rather, it is being pushed by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Nokia, and others. Why? Because it is another way for them to assure that you will stay a loyal customer. If they have all of your data, no matter how secure it is or isn't, and you are reliant on them to be able to do your job, then in a sense they "own" you, at least as a customer.
I am not 100 percent opposed to the idea of cloud computing, but since I began my career working with a mainframe and seeing the PC and then wireless industries grow up and mature, I have a lot of reservations about how much of what I do I would want stored in the cloud. Recently, Nokia admitted it lost two or three weeks of its customers' data due to a malfunction in its back-end system. I don't know about you, but three weeks worth of my work being gone forever would be disastrous. Most corporations do not like the idea of having their data outside their own firewalls and control. There are enough attacks on the Internet today to make them wary and they are well on their way into the world of wireless mobility.
What I do like is the idea of being able to access my data regardless of the device I am using. I spend a fair amount of time synchronizing my notebook with my desktop before every trip. I have yet to find a really good, easy-to-use solution. The one I use works most of the time. It would be nice to be able to walk out of my office and know I will be able to access all of my desktop or server data no matter where I am or what device I am using (including a "borrowed" terminal). But by the same token, the reality is that we live in an "always on" and SOMETIMES connected world. Cloud computing, like the old mainframes, relies on connectivity, and the wired Internet (which is not a mission-critical network) cannot guarantee that connectivity. And connectivity certainly cannot be guaranteed with wireless. If you go to the CTIA show this week, try WiFi in the midst of the show floor, then try any and all of the 3G wide-area networks and any others you can find, and you will discover that they work most of the time (with reduced speeds because of the number of users). However, there will be times when you are unable to get on any system and connect to the cloud.
I think there are some balances that need to be struck here; we always seem to go overboard for that "next big thing" that is going to make people rich and change the way we work when we are in the office, at home, and on the road. This is NOT the first time cloud computing has been championed--Sun and Oracle both tried and failed to gain a foothold against Microsoft by touting their own version of cloud computing a number of years ago. Today we live in a world where much of the information we use on a daily basis comes directly from the Internet or behind firewalls of our corporations, so in a sense, we have been using cloud computing for many years now.
By taking everything on my notebook, when I don't have connectivity, I still have everything I am working on with me--my email, applications, and all of my documents and databases. If I find myself without connectivity, I can still be productive and when I reconnect, my work can be dispatched to its intended recipient over wires or wirelessly. Becoming 100 percent wedded to the cloud--that may or may not be available to me 24/7--is not an option, at least for me.
Andrew Seybold is an authority on technology and trends shaping the world of wireless mobility. A respected analyst, consultant, commentator, author and active participant in industry trade organizations, his views have influenced strategies and shaped initiatives for telecom, mobile computing and wireless industry leaders worldwide. www.andrewseybold.com [1]
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[1] http://www.andrewseybold.com