23 Jul Cloud Computing: The Next Great Buzzword?
Tired of dealing with IT staffers who won’t speak to you and whose locations are always dubious at best (ie, can never find them when you need them)? Well, with cloud computing you can now hand off all of your IT needs to the “cloud”…which also won’t talk to you and will be just as difficult to locate as your IT staffers.
So what is cloud computing?
Definitions vary depending on who you ask:
Bob Buderi, founder and CEO of XConomy states that:
“There is a clear consensus that there is no real consensus on what cloud computing is.”
That wasn’t helpful.
Damon Edwards says:
“Clouds are the new Web 2.0. Nice marketing shine on top of existing technology. Remember back when every company threw some ajax on their site and said “Ta da! We’re a web 2.0 company now!”? Same story, new buzz word.”
Equally unhelpful, but I do tend to agree with his sentiment.
Ben Kepes offers a succinct:
“I view cloud computing as a broad array of web-based services aimed at allowing users to obtain a wide range of functional capabilities on a ‘pay-as-you-go’ basis that previously required tremendous hardware/software investments and professional skills to acquire. Cloud computing is the realization of the earlier ideals of utility computing without the technical complexities or complicated deployment worries.”
Now we’re cooking—a definition I can work with, but Ben makes it sound as if cloud computing is the best thing since sliced bread. Can it be true? I’ve heard everything from:
- “It’ll cure all of your IT woes”: Tired of spending gobs of money on Microsoft Licenses? Ditch M$ and come to the cloud!
to…
- “It’ll make the lives of consumers easier because all of your productivity services will be available whenever/wherever you need them. Plus, you’ll never lose anything because everything will be backed up automatically”: Use Gmail to manage your email and contacts. Create and modify your docs and spreadsheets in Google Docs or Zoho, etc.
That’s a lot of ground to cover for something that we can’t even define. What is clear is that there is obviously a lot of hype surrounding cloud computing and the promises that it holds. Fortunately, there are some real world examples of successful uses of cloud technologies to back some of that up. Bottom line, cloud computing, as we know it today, is still in its infancy and it’s still evolving. It’s too early to say whether it’s worthy of the hype, but it’s damn shiny and cool.
