It’s the Cloud

I mentioned in a blog last fall the bidding war between HP and Dell for the cloud computing company 3PAR and how the final price was three times the initial ‘friendly’ buyout. People weren’t particularly excited about it and I wondered if they weren’t aware of the magnitude of this new multi-billion dollar business where services are being offered “in the cloud”. It’s really nothing new as the cloud's previous monikers included not-so-catchy names like "application service provider," "software as a service" and "on-demand software." But it’s HUGE business and it’s getting bigger every day. And it's taken off like wildfire since the second half of 2010. Some are forecasting that this decade's leaders will be the ones that capitalize early on the trend.

Two of the main reasons for gaining popularity are reduced costs when offering services in the cloud and not having to buy and maintain solutions in-house. "The cloud will be the dominant method of computing for the next 20 years," said Eran Frajun, vice president of Asigra, a cloud backup provider. "Companies want to own a piece of that stack." For actual users, the cloud works remarkably well. You can create a document on the train ride to work using Google Docs on your mobile phone, then open the file on your work PC when you get into the office. Most of the computing tasks you do every day, like surfing the Web, checking e-mail, watching videos and writing documents can be done in the cloud. You can even back up your computer to a remote server.

For businesses, cloud companies are selling their services as cheaper solutions to existing problems. For instance, small businesses that can't afford the servers it takes to host a website or run certain business applications can borrow space from cloud companies that run massive data farms.

"With the cloud, individuals and small businesses can snap their fingers and instantly set up enterprise-class services," said Roy Stephan, director of IT architecture and engineering at tech solutions provider Intelligent Decisions. "Like collective bargaining, small businesses can get together and spread the cost out among themselves."

Back to my earlier comment, not everyone is all gung-ho about the cloud. Security remains a concern- that’s one reason why 3PAR was such an important acquisition as they are experts in security, backup and disaster recovery. And companies that offer cloud services and building secure solutions will win. As with any growing technology- and cloud services for sure- there's going to be bumps in the road. But there's little doubt that the cloud is becoming the new normal for computing.