John Linton ....the 'phrase' has been around for several years now but I have yet to find anyone who can provide an explanation of what it means - and I have tried Google. The Wikipedia entry is simple (although I automatically distrust anyone who uses the term "paradigm shift") and appears to describe a standard VPN using a thin client adaptation so perhaps 'cloud computing' is simply 'thin client' with a more appealing name. If that is the case it's an interesting marketing ploy for a saturated market but the commercial concept has been around for at least ten years but (it used to be called ASP - "Application Service Processing" in those days), as far as I'm aware it has never gone anywhere.
However, in technology, everything continues to change so maybe 'cloud computing' does have a future and, according to this article, the future is closer:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704719104575388374158004334.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews
Now I would re-emphasise that it could only be an economic arrangement that provides an economy to a large user to buy software licenses one way rather than another. Doubtless there will be 'marketing' rationales for other benefits but when all is said and done no organisation really has a problem asking end users to insert a CD to load the new opsys or application....or to have the required software suite downloaded from a central source.
Irrespective of my personal dismissive opinions you can see why Google would be licking its corporate lips at the thought of opening up Microsoft's monopoly of corporate office applications and it struck me that it is something that may 'catch on' in Australia if it is marketed well enough. Certainly "content" is the buzz word of the moment - usually in the context of residential market places but it could also apply to corporate and business marketplaces.
We have recently begun to market a hosted PABX service as a natural extension of selling Ethernet data links to small/small medium and medium large business customers. The service is simply an extension of the services we already provide to ourselves in Sri Lanka and to those of our employees who work from home plus a 'control panel' for the customer so that they can maintain their own extension list functionality and other control characteristics of an in house telephone system. That service or some version of it is planned to become a major contributor to Exetel's revenue over the coming two years if we are successful in delivering the sorts of services we have in mind.
We are also completing our first data base programming contract for one of our data link customers and have three more enquiries about providing similar services to other customers. Beyond that we have two 'solid' enquiries from small Australian ISPs to buy customised versions of our own automated provisioning and service fault handling systems which, if I thought they could pay a reasonable price for them, we would proceed with. Then there are the enquiries we are now getting to provide call centre services to one small and one not so small ISP. All this, currently low level, interest in outsourced services is a pretty fair indication that 'cloud computing' may very well be a fancy name for something very basic but it does seem that we may well be going to operate in a progressively more out sourced world.
Overall I think that's a good thing for Exetel because it seems that the Australian communications industry that has existed for the whole of my time in Australia and for 60 years before that time is going to be torn apart by a couple of dilettantes who not only knew nothing about what they were doing but didn't care a jot about it. Now there is the ever dumb Australian electorate who may make arrant stupidity some sort of 'reality' for a further 2 or 3 years before it all falls in a heap. Irrespective of whether or not you accept my personal view of the devastation that will be caused by Labor's incredible stupidities you will be forced to watch as the relatively competent Australian communications industry is torn apart and some 0 - 30,000 people lose their jobs and service delivery collapses.
It's encouraging, at least to me, that there may be some different sources of revenue to replace the ones about to be lost.
PS: Today marks the passing of the third anniversary of my starting writing this blog - a long way past the year I took a bet that i could originally do.Why am I still writing it? I really don't know.
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