Page 43 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

THE C L O UD REV O L UTION

more sophisticated arguments than I can. What we’ve done is
stand that debate on its head. It’s not the attributes of the
cloud’s most conspicuous feature, the Internet server cluster,
that matter. It’s the nature of the relationship between the end
user and those servers—the peer-to-peer relationship—that
gives the cloud its defining characteristic and affects busi-

nesses the most.
If that’s true, then this new machine seems to have a soul.
It satisfies a yearning for an equal relationship between the
end user and computer power centers that has existed since
computing first began. The new machine isn’t the sum of an
Internet data center’s parts. It’s the availability—part reality
and part illusion—of seemingly endless server cycles for any

end user request sent to it.
So far, this door has opened only a crack, and critics such as
Ellison can’t see past the shadows to the horizon beyond. For
that matter, it’s very early in the process, and not much in the
way of end user empowerment has passed through the open-
ing. Thus, eBay, Gmail, MySpace, Google Apps, Facebook, and
Office Live are all just crude early signposts of where cloud
computing can take us. Those who understand the change
will seize the opportunity and push the door open a little fur-

ther. But make no mistake, the next generation of computer
users and the ones to follow will pass through this portal.
The cloud is going to seize the hopes, the dreams, and the
ambitions of people around the world—and supply process-
ing cycles to help make them a reality. It will augment that pro-
cessing with powerful in-the-cloud services that can perform
feats previously considered beyond the reach of all but the

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