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Cloud living coming sooner than you think

March 19, 2008 | Internet Marketing

In the perpetually evolving digital space, new terms and concepts are seemingly born every day, which is why the term "cloud living" probably goes way over most people's heads. Don't feel too bad if you're one of those people -- the term is new, even in internet years.

Sometime in the past few years, most of us began to change the way we use our personal computers. We stopped going out and buying new software programs and installing them on our hard drives. Instead, we started using the internet as our computer, tapping into the vast quantities of software and data flowing through the network. Our powerful desktop and laptop PCs have been turned inside out. Most of their value comes not from what’s inside them but from the network they’re hooked up to. They’ve become, essentially, terminals.

This rise of what geeks call “cloud computing” is not without precedent. What’s been happening to computers in the early years of this century mirrors what happened to mechanical power at the start of the last century. At the end of the 1800s, if you wanted to run a machine in your factory or your home, you had no choice but to generate the power to run it. You had to build a waterwheel, install a steam engine or run your own private electric dynamo.

But as soon as the alternating-current electric grid was built, people and businesses stopped producing their own power. They just plugged their machines into the new network. Back then, it was electricity that turned into a utility served up from central plants. Today, it’s computing that’s turning into a centrally supplied utility.

Get the full story at AdvertisingAge

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