Would cloud computing change the landscape of the industry?

If you are reading this blog, you are having at least some experience using the Internet. Are you also using some sort of email system such as Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo mail? Are you using Facebook? If so, do you know what is the current version of Facebook?

The more important question is, do you care?

The answer is most likely no. You may not like the interface, but you will still continue to use it, because it's free, and there are always new features being added, without you needing to do any work.

Now, that's the coolest thing about it. You, as a user, do not need to install anything to get to use the latest features and functionalities of Facebook.

Isn't that cool?

In my own opinion, cloud computing is going to change the world, whether we like it or not. True, there are going to be people who are concerned about whether your personal information will be secured. There are people who worry about losing the control, as the applications are being installed in some big servers somewhere.

Where exactly?

Err... Again, do you care?

Just imagine the cost of we implementing a system such as Facebook ourselves. We will need to put in investment just for the following:
1. Web Servers
2. Application Servers
3. Database Servers
4. Load Balancers
5. A group of developers continuously adding new features into the application.
6. Data center(s)
7. Buying network bandwidth
8. A group of system administrators managing the servers
9. etc

How much would that cost you? Probably in the range of a couple of million dollars in investments.

What if someone is willing to foot that bill for that investment, and all you need to do is to come out with a minimum subscription cost to use it? If you don't like it, then you stop paying and that's the end of the story.

Sweet deal huh?

Yeah, I think so. For SME, this is especially a sweet deal. Just imagine that instead of spending a couple of hundred grand for a CRM software, I only need to pay a few dollars a month to get to use the software. And whenever there is an availability of new features, I get to use it, for no additional cost.

So the question is not whether cloud computing will change the world. Rather, the right question is, how would cloud computing change the world.

This is like when we first discovered the Internet. Everyone knew that it was going to change the world, but nobody knew how. We are probably in a slightly situation today about cloud computing.