Page 209 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

C A L C ULATING THE FUTURE

a few new super-services, such as the search engine, music
downloading, travel, and Webmail, emerged, buttressing the
fortunes of a few companies. A share of consumer retailing
moved online. The book distribution/selling business was dis-
rupted, and online auctions and trading platforms became a
new medium of exchange. Middlemen, information gate-

keepers of all sorts, were replaced by the interactive informa-
tion delivery mechanisms of the Web.
Cloud computing represents a third and more disruptive
phase of Internet computing. This phase consists of informa-
tion plus broad services and products. It is characterized by
deeper interactions powered by unlimited peer-to-peer-style
computing, where each party may vary or build out the ex-

change. The meaning of the end user gaining programmatic
control is that, in some instances, the interaction can go as far
as both parties want it to rather than only as far as one party
restricted it. The nature of the interaction can change as it oc-
curs. The data center can present the end user with new op-
tions geared to a particular individual that it seems to
recognize. The end user can send back to the data center
modified software that tells it where she wants to go. In phase
three, a narrow service can be followed by another that was

specifically requested by the end user, then by one that was co-
built with the end user. The cloud rolls up the changes of the
first two phases and combines them with a powerful engine to
do much more in this third phase. In this sense, the cloud
computing phase is more likely to undermine established
businesses than its predecessors. It promises to be a broadly
disruptive technology wave, changing the way companies re-

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