I recently read this San Jose Mercury News article which talked about cloud computing and why it was becoming so popular all of a sudden. If you are not familiar with the term "cloud computing" it essentially means moving applications off into the "cloud in the sky" instead of running them locally on your laptop or desktop. Some examples of cloud computing include Google Docs, cvsDude, Flickr, Smugmug, etc... The best part of the article was a quote by Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, saying:
"The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do, I can't think of anything that isn't cloud computing with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?"
In some ways I completely agree with Larry. In my mind, the question is not whether or not to move some application off into the "cloud", but instead the question should be "How USEFUL would it be to move some application off into the "cloud". And on top of that, is this any different from the old mainframe days? Also, how secure is this data on the cloud? I really don't care if someone can see my todo list for work or around the house, but I do not want my tax return information freely floating around for anyone to see, at least not until I decide to run for president.
"The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do, I can't think of anything that isn't cloud computing with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?"
In some ways I completely agree with Larry. In my mind, the question is not whether or not to move some application off into the "cloud", but instead the question should be "How USEFUL would it be to move some application off into the "cloud". And on top of that, is this any different from the old mainframe days? Also, how secure is this data on the cloud? I really don't care if someone can see my todo list for work or around the house, but I do not want my tax return information freely floating around for anyone to see, at least not until I decide to run for president.
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