Barton's Blog

Like all “new” things, if its hot and catches on everyone and his brother will jump on the band wagon and want to spread some of its magic pixie dust on their offerings — witness the overuse of the term “Web 2.0.”  Such is the current case with “Cloud Computing” a re-branding of an evolution of technology that includes utility computing and software as a service concepts.

(Note: One of the many great things about Cloud Computing is the amount bad puns that it allows for e.g. see title.)

Richard Stallman’s alter-ego “Saint IGNUcius.” (photo taken in Hawaii where we presented).

Everything tastes better with Cloud Computing on it

As Forrester analyst Frank Gillet explains on Beet.tv, this current overuse of the phrase is being referred to as “Cloud Washing” or the application of “Cloud Spray.”  It is this misapplication of the term that Oracle’s Larry Ellison railed against at the Oracle financial analyst meeting, “I can’t think of anything that isn’t cloud computing with all of these announcements.”  Still others are concerned that this willy-nilly application of the phrase will only serve to cloud the meaning of the term (remember what I said about bad puns).

Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation, whom I respect but don’t always agree with, tells the Gaurdian that he sees cloud mania as “worse than stupidity.  It’s a marketing hype campaign.”  Being no dummy however, Stallman has used this trend to do a little marketing of his own and grab valuable virtual ink in promotion of Free Software.

The Silver Lining

All this misappropriation aside, Cloud Computing is hot and represents a legitimate trend in computing that is occurring (and has been occurring for sometime now as an evolution rather than a revolution).

It is both this current buzz as well the legitimacy of this trend that led me to my current job, Marketing Director for Lombardi Blueprint process documentation solution.  Blueprint is a cloud-based offering that is available now (in fact you can even get a free trial).  But more on Blueprint in a future post.

Pau for now…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 10:48 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.