Cloud – without the silver lining
07 April 2009
A recent report suggests that the mystical cloud computing market is set to grow by 64 percent per year to reach $5.8 billion in four years’ time, but where is this money actually going to come from?
Strictly speaking this market report (from analysts iSuppli) covers ‘Cloud Storage’ rather than ‘Cloud Computing’, and there are differences between the two. Cloud storage can be viewed as the use of an online, remote storage facility for content, while cloud computing is a broader term that also covers online, remote applications.
I can see that there are circumstances when cloud storage will appeal – sharing music and photographs are a couple of these. Equally, cloud computing has applications that strike me as a perfect fit - online gaming would be one of these and I believe it is proving particularly successful with Customer Relationship Management applications.
However, while far from being an expert on the subject, it does strike me as if there are a couple of major obstacles to overcome before cloud computing enters the mainstream. There is the sci-fi vision in this age of ‘everything with web’ that computing and communications should be at our fingertips wherever we go - or at least this should be the goal of the high tech industries. Such a goal would result in all terminals simply being an interface between user and all the information and applications that exist, everywhere, on ‘The Cloud’.
This is a lot of information for people to trust to a central resource. While most of us have only recently become comfortable with allowing our credit card details to be used for online purchases, this tends to come from a standalone computer to a dedicated website. The feeling is that these details are kept in a carefully managed environment and not being let loose to the open internet. The notion that cloud computing would allow access to everything from anywhere does raise concerns from a security point of view. There is an argument to say that centralisation of data should make it easier to protect against theft compared to a scattering of this data around individual companies. Modern software encryption methods and individual company procedures should protect most people most of the time, but the worry remains that the skill of the criminal hackers will outwit those defending our confidentiality – and a centralised pool of information would be an ideal target for those embroiled in data theft. In other words, having our details on our own PC is one thing, using them in a cloud, psychologically at least, is completely another.
The other major concern I would have is that cloud computing increases our dependence on networks. Now everytime I have bought up the subject of anything to do with computers I have attracted critical correspondence that the problems I experience are only relevant to my computer, operating system, network etc. But I do think that everyone experiences the same problems from time to time - networks are still not as reliable as we would like them to be. Moreover, a networked operation, for whatever reason, tends to be a slower operation. Whatever bandwidth at the users disposal, there often seems to be a conflict of interest between operations that slows or stalls the interface computer and makes networked computing - occasionally - a frustrating business. Everything is so much better than it was even a few years ago, but we now expect faultless operation and that is not the case and I cannot see people trusting their computing power to a remote resource.
There are another couple of flies in the ointment. One I believe is ‘ownership’ of the cloud. Most companies involved want to see a truly open standard, while a couple of the main players seem to want to turn their ‘leadership’ into a more dominant position in terms of what amounts to hosting the cloud.
A final point goes back to my question in the introduction – where is the revenue coming from? If a user currently has a host of applications on the PC, why would they want to pay to use the same applications through cloud computing? There are examples (Google apps) where cloud computing provides information. Where this is the case revenue can be generated through advertising. Where an application is being delivered through cloud computing (e.g. Salesforce.com – a customer relationship management package), the main revenue stream could be through software licenses ‘on demand’ for the user, rather than having traditional contract-type licenses for a particular workstation. Ideal for a mobile workforce. However, this is the age when people expect to get everything for free online, I think it will only be the ‘killer apps’ that will take cloud computing into the realms of serious revenue generation.
I would be delighted to get any feedback to this issue. Is cloud computing just hype? Is it the future? Is it essentially here already? Please email at the usual address.
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