Welcome to Cloud Nation

If I asked you to log on to your computer right now, could you tell me how much hard drive space you are using on your computer? Now first, subtract the operating system, we do not need that, but include everything else, even those thousands of songs you have on your Itunes account, also do not forget those PowerPoint presentations you from last year, count those as well. Now add all of these various applications together, along with all of your personal stuff, and imagine all of those, not on your computer, but on the Internet, all saved in one spot so you can easily access them from various computers around the world.

Now this simple concept, the idea of offering everything online, is the simple idea behind cloud computing and what many people believe including Google, IBM, and Apple is the next big evolution of technology. With everything stored online, you have no reason for that high end Pentium 4 anymore, simply dust off the old clunker in the corner, to go online and have access to everything you will ever need. Imagine signing into your Google account and having access to everything that the Pentium 4, could do and more. Want to save all of those old pictures on your hard drive? Just save them to Google Wave. Need to finish that last minute Chemistry paper? Well just switch over to Google Docs and finish it there. All you will soon need is an Internet connection, and the possibilities of what you can do from there are endless. Now I have to ask though, are you ready for this? Despite the 350 million people Facebook claims to have and the growing number of people getting on the Internet, are you ready for cloud computing?

Now Google despite being the current forerunner in this push for Cloud Computing is not alone. Apple, who is best known for there Quicktime and Itunes applications, is not one to be left behind in this evolution of technology, so they recently purchased Lala.Com, in hopes of keeping up in this race. Lala's premise, if you have never visited it, is really quite simple, just pay ten cents for a song and you can listen to that song online as long as you want to. You do not own the copyrighted song however, you cannot copy it, you cannot move the song or hide it in your folders, however you do own the song online for free and as long as you have an Internet connection you can listen to it as many times as you want to. This move, however small shows just how much Apple is interested in keeping up the pace when it comes to Cloud Computing. Itunes might be a huge success, but in the future where everything is online, Apple has to keep up, if it wants to be successful.

Now I tell you all of this simply because again, I have to question, are you ready for this? Are you ready for every application you need to be readily available online for free or at a small cost? Where does the marketer come in all of this? How much will each application cost? Will we have to pay for each application individually? There are a thousands of questions still left that we need to see answered before we can say more. But in the end are people ready to get rid of their USB drives and hard drives, and are seriously ready for all of their information to be online and to trusted with a various company to protect it. Now I want to say that again, if you are not paying attention DO YOU TRUST ALL OF YOUR INFORMATION WITH ANYBODY BUT YOURSELF? That is the question we have to really ask. Scary isn't it? Ladies and Gentlemen the future is here, welcome to Cloud Nation.