Is Everything Going to the Cloud?

[TotallyOz]

I had to get another license for MS Office and it was cheaper to get the Cloud subscription.

I needed to upgrade to the newest Adobe Creative Suite and they have announced they would no longer be making CD's for sale and all sales would be on the cloud.

Is everything going to the "Cloud"?

[AdamSmith]

Well, there is some mixing of apples and oranges going on by those vendors.

Those particular apps will still download and execute on your PC. With Adobe (don't know the particulars of Office in the cloud), the cloud is simply where the data will sync for all your devices -- PC, tablet, smartphone.

What they are really doing of course is getting you on subscription. Smaller up-front payment than buying a perpetual license, but with annual renewal required at same rate, or higher whenever they decide to raise prices.

Subscription models can make software companies a lot more money over time. Some high-end engineering software companies that made the transition have proven that (pioneered in that segment by Synopsys, Inc.; more recently Bentley Systems, Inc. and others). However there is a lot of debate now on Wall St. over whether Adobe cut off perpetual-license sales too soon. Especially with proliferation of cheaper and even free knock-off work-alike apps. Time will tell.

As for the cloud proper, I love it. My most valuable business assets are my customer lists and contact lists, which for 10 years now I have entrusted to Salesforce.com, where they live entirely on the Salesforce servers, accessed by me with no local software other than any web browser. I could drop my laptop over the side of the Nantucket ferry with no effect on those lists, a situation I fervently wish for all my data and apps. Oh for the day.

[Guest EXPAT]

Cheaper for a subscription but you have to renew annually.

[Guest rimchair]

I know of a business person who lost documents in The Cloud. Be careful.

[OneFinger]

Unfortunately, I think most programs will move to the cloud. The problem I see is that it assumes you'll always have internet access. And, that internet access will have to be fairly robust.

So, what happens when you don't have an internet connection and you need to modify an Excel document. When your only access to Exel is on the "cloud", you're screwed.

I fully understand that the whole idea behind the cloud is to eliminate software pirating, But I'm not comfortable trusting a program that doesn't reside on my computer hard drive.

[Suckrates]

When you think about it, we will ALL be in the Cloud one day....

[AdamSmith]

I know of a business person who lost documents in The Cloud. Be careful.

Yeah, an acquaintance lost some things in iCloud.

But never heard of Salesforce losing anything. In 10 years I've never had a single glitch from them. Quite unlike when I used to use Act running on my own server for list management.

Differentiator seems to be: Is the cloud the vendor's sole model? Does their entire existence depend on getting that right? If yes, they are likely to put heaven & earth into doing so.

Another such example: Arena Solutions (www.arenasolutions.com). They provide cloud hosting of engineering bills-of-material for manufacturers and their suppliers. In >10 years in business I've never heard of them losing or corrupting the quite sophisto & complex data structures and interactions they support for customers. And in my biz of reporting on the software industry they are part of, I would have heard any least squeak of customer dissatisfaction.

So it can work.

[Guest FourAces]

The so called cloud has been around for decades however in more complicated access forms. I am sure many here remember FTP ... well there is your early cloud.

I don't mind the use of the cloud but I am still going to use a commercial back up service to be certain I do not lose valuable documents due to hackers or just failure in the systems.

One thing that does disappoint me is every service has its own cloud service and I am not certain if that fragmentation is a good thing or not.

[RA1]

^{Competition is almost always beneficial to the consumer, but there is a limit to everything, isn't there?}

^{Best regards,}

^RA1

[AdamSmith]

I think it would worry me a lot more if there were only one commercial cloud storage service available.

And of course fragmentation in the market hardly means you have to spread your data all over the place.

In fact, with many of them offering pretty decent data volumes for free, it is economical to get some redundancy by backing everything up on more than one service.

[Guest NCBored]

I had to get another license for MS Office and it was cheaper to get the Cloud subscription.

I needed to upgrade to the newest Adobe Creative Suite and they have announced they would no longer be making CD's for sale and all sales would be on the cloud.

Is everything going to the "Cloud"?

Oz, are you talking about downloading the program from the vendor to your computer or actually RUNNING the program on the vendor servers?

[TotallyOz]

No, these programs are on my computer but they are activated through the cloud and when you stop paying, they stop working. (I think)

[Guest NCBored]

No, these programs are on my computer but they are activated through the cloud and when you stop paying, they stop working. (I think)

I'm guessing that there is an 'expiration' date in the code on your computer that will de-activate it once your license expires; the alternative would be that the program checks the vendor server each time you use it, to verify that your license is still valid.

If the former is true, you could use the program without access to the cloud IF your license/subscription was still current.

[Guest Hoover42]

I'm guessing that there is an 'expiration' date in the code on your computer that will de-activate it once your license expires; the alternative would be that the program checks the vendor server each time you use it, to verify that your license is still valid.

If the former is true, you could use the program without access to the cloud IF your license/subscription was still current.

You need to be online when you first install the Adobe Creative Cloud (ACC) products, but after that, you don't need to be online at all for normal daily use. However, you do need to connect to Adobe's servers regularly to keep the product functioning. With an annual membership, you will be prompted to connect and validate your ACC license every 30 days. You can decline that prompt, but you can only do that for three months before the software is disabled.

[AdamSmith]

Interesting perspective.

Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman

Web-based programs like Google's Gmail will force people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that will cost more and more over time, according to the free software campaigner

• Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 September 2008 09.11 EDT

Richard Stallman on cloud computing: "It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign." Photograph: www.stallman.org

The concept of using web-based programs like Google's Gmail is "worse than stupidity", according to a leading advocate of free software.

Cloud computing – where IT power is delivered over the internet as you need it, rather than drawn from a desktop computer – has gained currency in recent years. Large internet and technology companies including Google, Microsoft and Amazon are pushing forward their plans to deliver information and software over the net.

But Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the computer operating system GNU, said that cloud computing was simply a trap aimed at forcing more people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that would cost them more and more over time.

"It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign," he told The Guardian.

"Somebody is saying this is inevitable – and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true."

The 55-year-old New Yorker said that computer users should be keen to keep their information in their own hands, rather than hand it over to a third party.

His comments echo those made last week by Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, who criticised the rash of cloud computing announcements as "fashion-driven" and "complete gibberish".

"The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do," he said. "The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?"

The growing number of people storing information on internet-accessible servers rather than on their own machines, has become a core part of the rise of Web 2.0 applications. Millions of people now upload personal data such as emails, photographs and, increasingly, their work, to sites owned by companies such as Google.

Computer manufacturer Dell recently even tried to trademark the term "cloud computing", although its application was refused.

But there has been growing concern that mainstream adoption of cloud computing could present a mixture of privacy and ownership issues, with users potentially being locked out of their own files.

Stallman, who is a staunch privacy advocate, advised users to stay local and stick with their own computers.

"One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control," he said. "It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman

[lookin]

It never made sense to me to put my info or my applications under anyone else's control. Even my email is erased from my ISP's server once I download it.

Not only do they have you over a barrel with future pricing, but the recent publicity around Snoopgate has highlighted the fact that the government has access to any stored information it fancies, now and forever.

I expect that those companies who are building their business models around storing user info will be among the first to start screaming about government intrusion. When the 1% starts taking it in the shorts, we might begin the necessary discussion around the value of privacy.

[Guest EXPAT]

I will fight cloud storage as long as I can. I do use the cloud to synch my contacts and my calendar but that's it.

[Guest EXPAT]

How to "un-cloud" yourself:

http://mashable.com/2013/06/10/move-out-of-cloud/

[AdamSmith]

Bit of a hack-work piece, but indicative of much more doubtless to come along these lines:

Why PRISM kills the cloud