Hugh Macleod has been posting some intriguing questions about what’s next for cloud computing. He’s wondering who’s going to be the big player, and how it will all work. Based on Power Laws, Macleod envisions one extremely valuable company dominating market share, and becoming the one, default, go-to place for all your cloud computing needs. Think a “Google” for the cloud instead of search.
Macleod explains his idea:
The premise is simple. In the future, we won’t have or even need all our data or software programs on our own computers, they’ll be floating around somewhere on somebody else’s servers, accessible via the internet. A vast, interconnected “nebula” of other people’s data and servers, hence the word, “Cloud”.
Big players in this game so far include some familiar names like Sun, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc etc.
The way I’m seeing the future commonly talked about, is all this data and programs spread all over the networks of all these companies, relatively proportional to their current market caps. Some folk have their stuff with Sun, some with Amazon, etc.
But nobody seems to be talking about Power Laws. Nobody’s saying that one day a single company may possibly emerge to dominate The Cloud, the way Google came to dominate Search, the way Microsoft came to dominate Software.
Monopoly issues aside, could you imagine such a company? We wouldn’t be talking about a multi-billion dollar business like today’s Microsoft or Google. We’re talking about something that could feasibly dwarf them. We’re potentially talking about a multi-trillion dollar company. Possibly the largest company to have ever existed.
[via Gaping Void]
So the question that always manifests itself when I hear about cloud computing is: “How is my privacy protected in the cloud?”
If the answer is: “It isn’t”, that’s OK, as long as:
1. The privacy question has been considered in the cloud computing model.
2. Cloud computing advocates are frank with the answer.
That way users have a choice.
Love the MegaCloudCorp hypothesis, but I’m inclined to give William Gibson credit for getting there first.
Regards
Gerry
PS Great site.
August 5th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
By Dan D. Gutierrez
CEO of HostedDatabase.com,
When we launched the web’s first Database-as-a-Service product offering in 1999, we envisioned a pervasive datastore. Recently, we launched the Open Database Project: http://www.OpenDatabase.info and MacLeod’s words of “a vast, interconnected “nebula” of other people’s data” resonates clearly.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:05 pm