Cloud Computing

Hey Everyone:


Sorry for the extended absence. I have lots of travel and lots of exciting things to discuss.

I had an opportunity to sit in with John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems at the 2010 Partner Summit in San Francisco last month. Along with twenty or so fellow IT executives, we all had about a half an hour to discuss anything we wanted with one of the most respected CEOs in the world. Wouldn’t you know it; one of the first questions put to the floor was this and I am paraphrasing “John, there is a lot of talk about “Cloud Computing”, can you tell us what it is exactly?”

What was interesting about his answer was not what he spoke of, but what he challenged us as executives to do. Mr. Chambers, through partnership with Cisco, challenged the resellers in the room to help Cisco and the networking world to help define this space. I’m sure by now everyone has heard the concept of “Cloud Computing”. In essence, “Cloud Computing” is the concept of removing from your network applications and tasks which can be better run by a company hosting the application for your organization. Simply stated, move part of your internal network into the Internet or “The Cloud”.

In its simplest form, “Cloud Computing” could be something as basic as moving your sales database on to a program such as Salesforce.com. In a more complex form something more dynamic and complex such as network management. Both examples fall under the category of “Cloud Computing”.

Here is the moment where I jump up on my soapbox so please back up.

The release of the iPad, in my opinion, is an absolute “game changer”. Why? The iPad is geared toward consumer based “Cloud Computing”….without the fancy term. I will speak more to this in an upcoming blog post.

All one has to do these days is take a look around at a coffee shop to see how consumers are using computers. Look closely…. Right! Where did all the laptops go?!? Some people still need them and you do see them, but it looks like most of the laptops have disappeared. Actually the laptops are still out there. Guess what?!? The laptops have been shrunk down and are now called “iPhones” and “Blackberries”. Even at the Cisco Global Partner Summit, in my less than scientific observation, around 30% of the attendees may have been carrying around actual laptops. Like the rest of my colleagues, I just brought my Smartphone with me to conference floor. My laptop stayed in the room. It was perfect for about 90% of what I needed to do during the course of a day. EVERYONE had a Smartphone allowing them leveraging the power of “The Cloud”. I think the iPad is the natural extension of this trend. It is a no nonsense touch screen with focus on applications and services not stored on device itself. Unless you need to type out the next great American novel, or write code for your computer, most of us use the power of “The Cloud” all the time…..you just thought it was called something else.