Should Cloud Computing Matter To You?
If you’re reading this, you are probably already Cloud computing. If you’re an iPlayerHD subscriber, you are Cloud computing. Cloud computing allows yours apps and data to be accessible on the web instead of on a single computer or network. It’s that simple. Well, kind of simple.
Think about Google for a moment. They have built a string of applications like maps, spreadsheets, word processing, presentations drawings, forms…the list is nearly endless. You use these apps to run your business and your life. None of them require that you download anything. You don’t even have to click save. And there is no need to be concerned about backing up your files because it is all done for you. In the Cloud.
Intuit QuickBooks makes it every simple to maintain your accounting records in the Cloud. No need to download software or be concerned that your current version does not meet your local taxing authority requirements. They do it for you. When you open the door, the banquet is prepared. Nothing to prepare and no mess to clean up.
The Cloud did not happen overnight. It has taken the better part of the last ten years to mature the technology necessary to make the Cloud technologically efficient, cost effective and secure. It has taken just as long for the world to understand and build trust in the Cloud. We Earthlings are a very skeptical crowd and when someone tells us to upload our most important records and files to a place we’ll never see and then trust they are safe and in good hands, well, we need convincing.
Amazon began its time on the Web as a place to buy stuff. People bought so much stuff that Amazon had to build monstrous data centers to handle all of the traffic and data. They developed and became so proficient at this that they decided to leverage that experience and their assets and build a Cloud they call Amazon Web Services. While they don’t deliver the videos you see when you click play on an iPlayerHD video, they do provide many other Cloud management features and data storage features iPlayerHD’s video hosting platform requires. And because they are so good at it, their products are attractively priced making do it yourself unattractive.
So, should Cloud computing matter to you? Of course the answer is yes. As we move toward the Cloud and away from local software apps, we naturally decrease the need for bulky machines to manage them. Over the next several years you will see once powerful companies like Dell continue to decline as they sell less PCs and companies like Apple continue to grow as they sell more tablets. All of these changes are happening over a narrow period of time. What is common today soon becomes a dinosaur. I suspect, however, the Cloud will be around for a very long time.
Cheers.
Wes
p.s. Don’t yet have an iPlayerHD account hosted in the Cloud? Get your free 30 day trial here.