The Teckki Says

What is Cloud Computing?

If you have a public email account, understanding Cloud Computing is low pressure, because your emails, pictures and other information are stored in the Cloud Computing stratosphere. This, and your ability to access your account, is the basic gist of Cloud Computing. Google takes this a step further, allowing you to store documents and spreadsheets online.

Given this, many of you already trust the Cloud.

But some of you may have been introduced to a hail of issues in Cloud Computing if you owned a T-Mobile Sidekick and weren't able to restore your phone information from a backup after your battery went dead. In that instance, you understood it all too well - you got drenched.

Storms do occur in Cloud Computing, and there can be serious consequences.

In the future, I suspect that you will be flooded with marketing from companies touting Cloud Computing, sunny scenarios and all. Cloud Computing is relatively safe, considering that you've trusted your websites to such technology for years. However, are you ready to jet stream ahead and trust more of your company data and functionality to Cloud Computing?

It has the ability to transform the atmosphere in your business, reducing equipment costs and shifting labor to outsourced services. In the high pressure environment of survival, reducing costs is something in everyone's forecast. However I would think about this carefully, because the rules are still being written on Cloud Computing.

There is only so much information I personally am going to let go beyond my internal computers and servers. This mirrors my philosophy on business functions I will never outsource - finance, marketing and R/D. Yours may be different, but I feel that those three functions define so much of what a company is that they should be carefully guarded and secured. In the Cloud, I would give up this security.

I would also be more vigilant about what my own employees could do on the Cloud. In some cases, lapses and carelessness can be embarrassing, and in other cases, they can be considered crimes. If it happens on internal computers, it may just be a local issue. In the Cloud, you might have to fend off federal wire fraud charges. If you think this is a stretch, note what can happen to an underage kid who posts pictures of his under-dressed, underage girlfriend to Facebook. Prosecutors in some cases are upgrading charges to that of an adult sex offender.

You have been using the Cloud successfully for years, but those have been defined uses, and the companies you have been using have been fairly clear on how to use their technology. As you puff your Cloud with more of your information and functionality, the rules become more general, and your culpability increases. Keep that in mind as you use more Cloud Computing, how you weather the experience is prognosticated on how well you manage the climate. Sunny days can be many if you do this well.

In reading the article Phones, PCs put e-book within reach of Kindle-less, I can't help but ask how many times are we going to have this debate? Everybody wants to think that they can do everything from their phone. Every generation of smart phone is supposed to replace all of the older, larger devices it incorporates.

By now, Dell, HP and other large footprint computer companies should have shelved their desktop and laptop operations a long time ago. With so much computing power built into our phones, we should have all replaced our "big boxes" with these devices. In fact, we should be upgrading our old, less powerful smart phones with newer models that would allow us to throw away more hardware, like mice and keyboards, because if they aren't already built in, touch screens will finally render these devices obsolete.

But everyone I know still has a computer.

It's the real estate, stupid!

Smart phones are definitely more powerful than computers of just a few years ago, but I am not doing work I did a few years ago, I am doing TODAY's work! My screen of a few years ago was 19", it's now 22", and a larger one would not hurt. The likelihood of me putting larger screens into a backpack or a back pocket have long been nil. Looking at pictures, documents and websites on a 2"x2" represents such a step backwards in both size and resolution that I can't see (no pun intended) why we still think smaller is better in this case.

My need for memory (4GB and counting), hard drive space (160GB primary, several external drives) and connectivity to
additional devices (I have a hub in addition to 8 on board USB slots) requires more than I can expect from a device as small as a smart phone. Try sticking a thumb drive (which many of us have) into a phone slot.

There are things that I find wonderful about a smart phone: Keeping my contacts and appointments, acting as a portable Yellow Pages directory, a GPS system when I get lost (or before), and text messaging. Since I use email as a documentation system, I limit usage to quick notes and replies, and I don't attach nor appreciate receiving attachments over cellular lines.

Oh, I forgot the most important thing I need from a smart phone - the ability to make calls.

In a recent article in Business Week, Can the Apple Touch Sell the Tablet?, explores the next attempt of technology (remember the first from Apple, the Newton?) to compute with the whole hand instead of just the fingers. The question may not just be can Apple pull it off, but what if they do?

The article suggests uses and losers. One thing for sure is that it will bring about transformed landscapes. If tablets become widespread, they will transform the way information is input into computing devices. Integrate a keyboard, mouse and a screen, and everything, from typing to point-and-click movements to screen viewing, goes through a transformation. It will take the new generation, those who did not grow up with the current technology, to sort things out.

However, some things won't wait. Web sites will have to be redesigned. For instance, small buttons that a mouse pointer could find with ease will have to be bigger, cutting into screen real estate, which will most likely be smaller. Animation will probably play more into web design, sacrificing maintainability and a customer's ability to self-modify their sites.

In other words, this technology has the potential to be revolutionary, taking the current-but-soon-to-be-obsolete way of doing things with it. Tablet computing will change an interaction that has been in place since Apple made the mouse widespread.