Law Students

The cloud? It's Just Economics 101.

That is the argument that Nick Carr makes in The Big Switch with respect to cloud computing. Here's the money quote:

A hundred years ago, companies stopped generating their own power with steam engines and dynamos and plugged into the newly built electric grid. The cheap power pumped out by electric utilities didn?t just change how businesses operate. It set off a chain reaction of economic and social transformations that brought the modern world into existence. Today, a similar revolution is under way. Hooked up to the Internet?s global computing grid, massive information-processing plants have begun pumping data and software code into our homes and businesses. This time, it?s computing that?s turning into a utility.

The cloud is inevitable and the buzz will only increase in 2009. When businesses both large and small can purchase secure and reliable computing power and storage for pennies on the dollar (available today), it is game, set, match for client server computing. RIP. The total cost of ownership comparison of the two alternatives is not even close. The video below is a testimonial from Genentech on why it moved to the cloud for email and collaboration. I posted about Eli Lilly using Amazon's S3 here. If it is good enough for the big boys then, to quote Dylan "Don't think twice it's alright."

It is not a question of features and functionality. Any advantage client server has with respect to the latter is quickly eroding and the real driver is raw economics. You do not need to be a techie to understand why the cloud will win, you just need to understand economics 101.

Full post as published by LawTechTV on January 13, 2009 (boomark / email).