Page 32 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

MANA GEMENT STRATEGIES F O R THE CL OUD R EV OL UTION

of low-cost parts and manages them as a single resource, and it
performs accordingly. Thus, Amazon can tell you as soon as
you make a purchase what other buyers like you also bought.
And the marvelous Google search engine returns thousands
of results from a multiple-keyword search in less than a second.
Without the cloud, this speed wouldn’t be possible.

But search and e-commerce are still child’s play compared
to what the cloud is capable of offering. Facebook, with at last
count 326 million active users uploading text, photos, and
video and manipulating content, comes a lot closer to show-
ing the potential of the cloud, but it still falls short. Five years
ago, such services would have seemed inconceivable. What
will the new services look like five years from now?

From out of the cloud will come massive computing re-
sources at prices that seem to defy economics—information
and services that stream to the end user as if from some benef-
icent power. Like a river flowing from the mountains, the In-
ternet “cloud” provides resources to distant points without
incurring any extra charge. For example, you might get access
to software that will help you design a sailboat to the latest
principles of streamlined hull shapes. You might find advice
and interactive guidance on how to cope with problems as you

start a company. You might go through an interactive process,
using video to show what your firm is doing, with venture cap-
italists who are looking for a worthy candidate in which to in-
vest. Once you’ve tapped into the cloud, you cease to be an
isolated individual and you become part of a larger digital cos-
mos, where everything is linked to everything.

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