iCloud may not be the next phase in Cloud technology, but it's the next step
At a Cloud Computing seminar I attended earlier this year, I was surprised when one of the panelists - invited for his expert opinion on Cloud technologies - announced that not only did he have no idea why he was on the panel but that the thought the Cloud was an absolutely fad and waste of time. "I've read three books on the subject!" was what I recall him saying.
To me - and I've said this before - the Cloud is that avenue of technology that finally allows the actual technology to get out of the way of the user experience. Note that I'm not saying that it wasn't possible before, or that the Cloud is the answer to *everything*.
Yesterday's iCloud announcement has, and will, cause some stir. Over the air syncing of all the things that matter - pictures, documents, applications and even music - using Apple's own data centers, for - and I think this is really important - free. Apple is paving the way for taking Cloud technology to the masses, and all those who wouldn't stop talking about how scary the cloud is. Free stops a lot of people from asking questions. Often, when speaking to customers about the fact that a lot of our technology offerings are based in the Cloud, you can already see that they've shown you the door. Talking to them about the benefits of the Cloud - the ease of use, availability from anywhere - doesn't seem to change their minds, until they hear the words, "unlimited storage", as is the case for email archiving in the cloud. Suddenly it sounds more interesting.
I was equally interested by Jobs' presentation. Did anyone notice that he spent very little time describing the data center or the servers or the technology it runs on? In fact, I think the words he used were we have a lot of "stuff" and we're ready to unveil this, and that was it. He spent all of his time discussing the features - what it could do - rather than what the technology was built on. And that's the real, true, benefit we've come to see with Cloud technologies: getting the nuts and bolts out of the way so the user can play with the toys.
Even the Cloud's staunchest critics are going to raise an eyebrow. The arguments to date about data being off site and security and so on and so forth will soon pave way to giving it a try, for free. There are 54 million active Mac users and over 200 million iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and the iPod touch) out there, according to Apple. These are big, big numbers.
A lot of critics will complain that iCloud's (and a lot of iOS features) are things already seen before, that it's nothing new. They're mostly right. But I'll quote an interesting review from TNW:
We don’t want things that don’t work perfectly and Apple has become a master of fixing the half-finished work of others.
via thenextweb.com
Apple may not be first in the game but it is one of the biggest players in the field with access to some very loyal users. Why wouldn't they be. Apple has done what Microsoft has only dreamed of, and what Google has achieved to an extent but not this seamlessly (yet). Apple chose the 'we'll be strict so we get the results we know our users want' way to Google's 'we'll be open because that's what the users want' approach. Each has its merits and its drawbacks. But Apple is quickly showing that it can both outrun its peers in things it does well and better than anyone else; for things it doesn't do so well, it can catch up exceedingly fast.
The highlight statement for me was Jobs following the announcement of iCloud by asking the question, ""Now why should I believe them? They're the ones who brought me MobileMe." That takes cahonies. But it wasn't about a funny one-liner to amuse the crowd. He then proceeded to explain Apple's realization that it wasn't done right that it was not their "finest hour", what they learnt, and how they went about fixing it with iCloud. And Steve Jobs may be a lot of things, but he's not an idiot.
There is no doubt in my mind that Apple has given the concept of the 'cloud' a boost yesterday. As people start using it, they will see the potential of what iCloud really is - making your life available, anywhere and everywhere you have an internet connection.
