Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Changes 2008 – Part 2

In my last post I said I would be commenting on things that I believe may change our lives in the near future. Here is another:

Cloud Computing


One reason computers are getting smaller and smaller (becoming big phones) is that they won’t need the software or storage to reside on the machine. The programs live on the web and your documents can be stored there also. This will allow computer makers to put small, solid state drives in the new computers instead of the old bulky mechanical ones. Computer storage (personal variety) will not be an issue, programs and documents will live on the internet servers “in the cloud.”


We have been used to playing online games for some time, but now word processing, spreadsheets, databases, etc. are now also available through Google Docs, Zoho and other providers. (I have been experimenting with these and now there are some days when I don’t use MS Word at all.) GMail is the defacto email writing and storage solution for the masses already. So far, most of these programs are free.


There are comparable business solutions being offered, incorporating software as a service (SaaS), and other recent, well-known technology trends. Their common theme is reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users, for example, Google Apps. A big benefit here is that IT only has to update the program on the Web, not on individual computers, saving a great deal of time and expense. Traditional software vendors are starting to hurt already.


The web is no longer a bunch of static pages. It is now an interactive medium known as Web 2.0 . As we interact with others more and more on the web, the web will increasingly be a place that we truly live, a real place where real people work and meet. You might want to stake out a piece of web real estate and make yourself comfortable. We are going to be here for a long time.

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