No I am not arguing that Macs are better than PCs. Macs suck. That isn't what my essay is going to be about though. The reason I say screw Microsoft is that they recently held a press conference in which they revealed their intention to pursue Cloud Computing. As it stands 70% of Microsoft employees are working on projects that involve cloud computing, and they want to raise that to 90% by the end of the year. Microsoft is gambling their future on the cloud wave. By cloud wave I mean the recent push towards the integration of cloud computing as the standard. Now I understand that many people don't understand what cloud computing is, so the first bit of my essay will definitely be outlining what cloud computing is. Cloud computing is a way of using centralized computers. Amazon already has a service that resembles a cloud, where you can pay to use some of Amazon's extra processors. The eventual goal of cloud computing way down the line is to simply eliminate the use of a computer (the tower bit, not the screen). A cloud computer's utopia would have only a screen with minimal computing power to understand the data being fed to it from a central server. All processing, saved data, and calculations would be done elsewhere. Computing would then be payed for, instead of investing in a machine to do it yourself.
My take on the matter is that cloud computing is absolute crap. I hate the idea of it. I think that it is just a way for companies to make more money, and that it will kill a lot of what makes computing so fun, as well as eliminate quite a few Tech Support jobs. I suppose there are some advantages though. So here is the general standing of things:
Pros:
1) Centralized data is easier to guard from hackers, phishers, malware, spyware, etc.
2) Upgrades and installations can be done almost instantly to a central server
3) Data is more protected from crashes
4) People wouldn't need to pay for computers, and wouldn't need to worry about their upkeep
5) People could have access to a lot more computer power for cheaper
Cons:
1) Computing would join water, gas, and electricity as a utility
2) All your data would be saved on a company server, which the company would have access to
3) You would have to pay a monthly fee, or a fee per unit of time, or a fee per calculation (depends on the company) to use a computer
4) You would loose the ability to configure your computer freely
5) The central servers would provide easy targets for hackers and phishers
6) Computing would loose a lot of flexibility
7) The local computer repair profession would more or less be eliminated
My stance on the matter is always one of freer localized computing.
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Lobo,
ReplyDeleteGood post! This is a topic about which I don't know a whole lot, and so I'm excited to learn more through your essay. It strikes me that the two central principles your argument will be based on are autonomy and privacy (two things most of your readers will tend to value, and so arguing that cloud computing will compromise them ought to be pretty convincing). Just read something this morning about Google's disastrous launch of BING and the privacy complaints that surrounded that--so this could be something useful to you as well). Glad you're planning on taking the time to explain cloud computing at the outset for the lest technically literate among us.