Cloud computing has already swelled into an estimated $36 billion market this year, representing roughly 13 percent of global software sales. The big question now is whether it can turn into a technology tsunami that sweeps Microsoft and other software industry staples into obsolescence. http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20081221/ap_on_hi_te/tec_cloud_computing
So does AMZN, the impressive thing is that Genentech is giving it a whirl. Many corps will be watching this experiment. http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/news/interview/0,289202,sid26_gci1335629,00.html Nitro, long time no see, hope you and yours are healthy and prospering. Happy Holidays to you.
Cloud computing could be the REAL making of Google. Yes MSFT are working hard and realise that their main asset is under threat. But MSFT's problem has been around as long as the company - it never seems to focus on how to make things easy for the user. MSFT seems to make the mistake most clever people make, they think that everyone has the same intelligence as they do. But sadly this is far from a reality. So Gates makes his crap hard to use and very complicated for the average user while Google is the opposite. For example, turn on Word, look at how many options and how powerful the program is. And then ask how much a) you use all the addons and more importantly b) you have a clue what they all do. Then look at Google Docs, nice and simple, easy to use, easy to understand. This is why MSFT is so scared of the cloud and in turn Google.
My background and job is in computer science. Guys, stop drinking the kool-aid. The cloud doesn't use new technology and is just a rehashing of old tools. Please don't get suckered in by this garbage.
It seems interesting, but I'd agree - it's garbage. Google is so far behind Microsoft on the Spreadsheet and Word processor front that their products are unusable for even minor business applications. Could you imagine running the books of a public corporation on Google's cloud spreadsheet software? Take a look at these tidbits: Even Genentech, the biggest U.S. company to buy Google's applications package so far, isn't ready to abandon Microsoft entirely. It's still licensing Microsoft programs like Word for writing documents and Excel for creating spreadsheets. -------------------- Benioff's San Francisco-based company is now the largest cloud computing service for businesses, with a market value of $4 billion, about 52,000 customers and revenue totaling $1 billion in its past four fiscal quarters. But Salesforce's income of $37 million during that time translates into a measly $3.70 profit on every $100 in sales. That looks anemic alongside Oracle's net margin of about $24.80 for every $100 in sales in the comparable period. And San Mateo-based NetSuite still hasn't eked out its first quarterly profit after a decade in business, despite steady growth that boosted its revenue during the past four quarters to $143 million. The slim profit margins reflect the expenses cloud computing providers must absorb to build big data centers and hire the engineers to run their software applications, while they charge relatively modest fees to use their service. What's more, they don't require their customers to pay additional money for product updates and maintenance â a gold mine for traditional software makers. Crappy products and no profit margin. Sign me up!
That would be a security disaster. Where I work, most people have passwords like "12345" (of course, written on a yellow note taped to the monitor). And there is nothing that can be done about it. Imagine all corporate secrets readily available to any hacker on the internet.
Yeah I completely agree. This is a security nightmare and also a privacy and autonomy problem. Is it a good idea? Yeah I think so, but so does moving close to the speed of light. It's one of those good in theory, bad in practice ideas, especially with memory becoming so cheap? Yeah, might be going down an already obsolete path. Only time will tell (shrugs)
I have all informal documents on google docs, I never have to worry about losing them, backing them up, etc.. The Text editor is a piece of junk though, quirky, almost as primitive as vi in Unix really... but, it's great to be able to get to all my documents so easily from anywhere... it overcomes the synch problem.