Like it or not, cloud computing is the wave of the future - MarketWatch

Like it or not, cloud computing is the wave of the future - MarketWatch

In this piece about 'cloud' computing, Therese Poletti presents the arguments of Richard Stallman against cloud computing and those of Nicholas Carr for the concept now being deployed by heavyweights Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others. Stallman argues that those embracing it give up control, privacy and security. Carr compares cloud computing with the electrical grid and the efficiencies for computing are equivalent to the electrical grid that developed shortly after widespread on premise electrical power generation. My guess is that Stallman is more or less a control freak and distrusts 'BIG' enterprise.

I believe the cloud will eventually win out, but not to the total exclusion of premise based computing. We'll see a mixture just as we see a mixture of premise and grid power generation. I have already embraced the cloud in that my use of Google services, especially Docs and Spreadsheets, but many others, too is rising dramatically.

Now that Microsoft announced Windows Azure 0n October 27, 2008, there's absolutely no doubt that cloud computing has a future in the enterprise. MS has committed huge resources to the cloud concept to make it usable for present software developers and the applications they already have built.

The huge risk I see is global catastrophe or war on a massive scale that interrupts the global fiber network of several data centers at the same time. Given the reliance the global economy and culture will eventually place on this massive infrastructure, the consequences of catastrophic failure is mind-boggling.