Beware ‘Cloud Computing’ Hype
One of the most hyped terms in the marketing of software products right now is “cloud computing” or providing software services “in the cloud”, which is really just a trendy way of describing a hosted “software-as-a-services (SaaS) product. But beware the hype!
Companies like Salesforce.com push the so-called “Cloud” concept hard, and a number of new startups offer their products solely as a service accessed via the web. But as with the vaporware of the old days, they hype often far exceeds the reality.
I recently signed up for a free trial of a web content management system (CMS) via the much-vaunted Cloud, and experienced multiple problems with the service. After imputting my credit card, I couldn’t even access my account! After initially denying a problem even existing, the company finally agreed to cancel my account.
Although its very cool and trendy right now to blather on about the cloud and how we will all soon be floating around on it with our data, beware committing your data and resources to untried companies and their cloudy technologies. For now, I’m happier to keep my data right were it is now - on my CPU.