Some people are still stuck in the idea that the cloud is just so much vapor. While they’re still sneering at the very idea of a cloud, others have moved on to the next logical step: That cloud-based computing will replace the PC.
As Jason Perlow, Senior Technology Editor at ZDNet and Microsoft Technology Solution Professional, recently put it, “It seems some of you find the cloud … threatening. And that you’ll move to the cloud kicking and screaming, holding your personal computer and your local data with your gritty nails dug into your laptops, external drives, and NAS appliances, tearing at them with whatever last lingering bit of life force you have left in you before you’ll accept the inevitable.”
And what is inevitable?; According to Perlow it’s that “The cloud is coming for you whether you like it or not. The cloud cannot be stopped. Your data and user experience will be
It’s not just Perlow. Gartner predicted last year that the cloud will replace the PC as the center of users’ digital lives by 2014. Certainly the vendors are betting on this.
That was the vision Steve Jobs had in mind for Apple’s iCloud. Google’s Chrome OS, and its associated Chromebooks, is all about making the cloud the center of the computing experience. And even Microsoft is getting into the act with more advanced online services such as Office 365.
So, will most of us be doing our computing on the cloud in 2014? I don’t think so.