ISPs have been providing what is now called 'cloud computing' for years. AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy even the BBS were clouds in their own right. The idea that somehow the 'dumb terminal' is a new concept
is a frightening thought. The first mainframe computers used terminals and even today mainframes use terminals.
There has always been two camps on owning the software or 'renting' the software. This also reflects on the equipment one uses too. A cheap throwaway terminal (perhaps a netbook is a good example of this) compared to a full powered system that can run applications independent of the Internet or network. The 'sell' is the classic razor blade sales model. The person is given the razor holder and the cost of the razor blades is inflated to maximize profit. Data is held hostage by design or poor design depending on ones point of view. We have gone from 'ASP', for application service provider, to SaaS, or software as a service, to the newest coined phrase, 'cloud computing'. One can only hope they rename SaaS to something more appropriate like 'I hope the Internet keeps working computing' or 'the hare vs. the turtle computing'. Without the Internet connection the 'dumb book' is just that 'dumb'
I'm certainly aware of the marketing hype of how SaaS brought on a new age with web based applications. Really? Where is Al Gore when you need him to confirm his inventing the Internet. Web based applications have been around a lot longer then SaaS or ASP.
Free applications with advertising. It's no accident Google's earnings are 97% from advertising. Renting the software does not always require paying for it. It's a new spin on giving an application away for visiting my site or telling my friends about it. I'm not trying to sell you anything. Just free services that happen to have a lot of advertising. It is honestly an advertising distribution method and not for the greater good of mankind.
I certainly think that SaaS has it's place as well as 'cloud computing' in that it does provide massive computing power for solving very complex equations. However to try and sell it as a complete business solution when it can only operate with a Internet connection (and high speed at that) is just looking for trouble.
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As computers were a revolution in themselves, data storage and analysis will be the next revolution. I'm referencing Google's great book scanning project. It's mind boggling to consider the information that will be available (by reference) and then the implications to researching human written thought. The vision of the old great library of Alexandria that once contained all the ancient written knowledge. The somewhat mysterious end to the collection by first Julius Caesar and later by successions of burnings. Not everyone appreciated great learning it appears or highly careless in the case of Caesar.
This time around knowledge is being stored in the form of digital bytes instead of papyrus and the intent of some search engines is to make it all available via search on the Internet. This is not the current state of affairs with the Internet by far. There are millions of web sites with varying states of authority (trustworthiness determined by algorithms) giving the searcher some rough indication of source but the system continues to be exploited by a certain bred of advertisers to drive traffic to their lairs.
I was reading "Why We Buy" by Paco Underhill and Paco mentioned that one of drawbacks of the Internet is it has no organization to it. He skipped the major influence that search engines and directories have been trying to achieve. What's more he really skipped over the point of libraries in the first place, or closer to home for him: the brick and mortar store. We seek information and organization. Information does not exist in itself as a pure force. We seek information. Be it at a store, print or on the Internet. The game changer for the Internet is the concept of search. You can search for answers (or more questions then answers).
So this is where data storage is taking us. In order to realize the the full potential of search everything needs to be digitized and stored. Data centers are the new Alexandrian libraries spread across the United States, Europe and Asia. Companies and individuals store their data on-line or 'in the clouds'. Storage needs increase and data storage adds another terabyte or petabyte to the equation.
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