Sunday, June 12, 2011

What is this "Cloud" really good for?

I am not entirely sure, beyond the companies' need for finding new sources of income, why this "Cloud" thing is becoming so big. What is it really solving for us, apart from forgetting to bring your laptop? Apart from convenience, what important issues does it solve for us? There is probably things I haven't gotten yet, it's been known to happen.
... Mossberg talks about how the vision is that basically the data, the computing power, most of the Operating System, will be left to the cloud servers, so what we we, we can do on very compact and cheap terminals, because they don't need all the storage space and computing power. Well... it sounds great, but... it demands an awful lot of trust, doesn't it? Several huge companies recently have had big breakins where they lost personal data for millions of customers. Not to mention, can we trust our internet connections to be up and fast enough when we need it, ten minutes before a deadline or meeting? Can we trust our documents not to disappear? I think these things need years and years of development and also getting-used-to once they do work, for it all to become a real alternative way for serious work.





Ironic: I have been paying Apple $100 every year for ten years, first for .Mac, then for its replacement, MobileMe, all the time waiting for some feature which really made it worthwhile for me. (I got my .mac email address when it was free, and then they started charging...) And now with iCloud it seems like it may actually begin to become useful to me, and now they make it free! What a friggin' weird world.

6 comments:

Bruce said...

"... for it all to become a real alternative way for serious work."

I would say that Apple is not doing this for people like you and me, who have alternatives. They are doing this for people who have a cell phone right now, but have never owned a computer. There are billions of those people.

This is part of Apple's history, where their current customers say, "I'm not thrilled about this new thing Apple is doing," but it attracts many new customers who love it.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Good point.
He did show a chart of how much of the population in different countries own a PC, some of them it was very low.

Bruce said...

There are a ton of charts and graphs about this subject at a site calle asymco. I have learned a lot from visiting that site. His recent (and first) podcast was a good listen as well.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

http://www.asymco.com/
??

Bruce said...

Yes, that's the one.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Thanks. Yes, another example.