no!

i'm a big fan of google generally but i have no faith in cloud technologies. the biggest obstacle is what happened in egypt. it doesn't matter if you live in a more stable country you are at the end of the day depending on your government not to shut you out from internet services. now add intermittent internet services (how many hours or days was your internet down last year?) and i have no trust in remote services.

i can get work done as long as i have my data to work on. put the data in the cloud and deny me access to the cloud and i can do nothing. so no cloud for me. i'll use cloud but make sure i have a local backup.

Cloud ok. But locally!

Sorry not sold. The cloud is the future of data, not of the applications themselves. My application has to be local. Tried them applications, it's like suddenly you lost a half of your fingers.

I believe that if Microsoft can last as a leader in desktop OS for 4-5 more years, google apps will wither since the cloud will appear local in the OS. Login anywhere and you're home, that's my dream, take note of that Microsoft!

Everyone WILL go to the cloud.

...because of multiple wonderful promises including a huge ROI and glowing case studies. There they will experience bottlenecks in accessing their huge PowerPoints, 4GB emails and have a few system outages inconveniencing the CEO. Corporate info will be hacked, salaries will be disclosed and lawsuits will abound. Then the herd will swing back the other way and bring their data back in-house where they can access the info at Gigabyte speeds with secure controls and backups.

Cloud computing is not the end-all-be-all problem solver the marketing folks want you to believe. It has its uses and is practical in some cases, yes. However, it is just one tool in the box. Remember, you can only access the "cloud" at the speed of your Internet connection and that is already being used for one or two things today.

Free Ad-Free Gmail

"With the free version – for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and families – you'll see ads on Gmail, but nowhere else."

Yes, so I noticed; even AdBlockPlus in Firefox can't block the ads in Gmail. However, there is a Plugin/Extension for the Chrome browser (called AdBlock) that actually does block ads in Gmail. I was amazed.

I suspect that Google know about this but reason that only techie types will install it and that we're a lost cause for adverts anyway; being a cynical and suspicious lot.

Amazing

Google-Apps guy says everybody will eventually go to the cloud. How surprising. About like going to a Ford dealer and being told everybody will eventually be driving a Focus.

The cloud concept is useful, but still a bit tenuous. If you can put up with having your data and apps stored somewhere that you have little control over, and little control over gaining access to, then sure, the cloud is for you. But don't come crying when all your Internet connections go down and your CEO can't get into his email. Sorry, but at least with local stuff, if a switch goes bad, I can swap it out and be back in business inside of a half hour, and the CEO can go back to reading his emails and generally doing nothing useful.

Google has spawned ...

... another idiot.

Only a Hybrid will work

To suggest that we will all go 100% is foolish. People will demand local and cloud based apps and services moving forward. Data location can be a regulatory nightmare. This makes sense in lots of areas. Lots of apps are now commoditized so why not provide them like a utility in a multi-tenant environment. Makes sense of energy use and predictable loading. Coming from a networking background I remember leased lines giving way to shared Frame-Relay/MPLS links which are a shared service. Heck we've been using cloud for consumer for yonks now. 500Million using MSN.. Similar numbers for Gmail. Skype etc... Energy wise it makes a lot of sense also.

To those who point at unreliable internet links. Mine is rarely down and if it is I could only work locally anyway regardless of what apps I have. Most of them are collaborative in nature anyway. We used to have the same arguments on VOIP and IP telephony. You know what happened, networks became much more reliable to meet the challenge.

If the cloud is so good...

How comes hosting companies are not eating their own dog food?

I know quite a few hosters, and their own stuff is pretty close to them in the same office.

As someone else pointed out, "cloud-computing" is just a marketing term for having your infrastructure on someone else's data centre, and having the install/maintenance done for you.

So for getting customers "cloud-computing" sounds much better than "managed hosting"-"dedicated hosting"

I'd be happier.....

with consumer cloud services if every time that Google talked about the cloud they didnt remind me that they want to read/parse all my data to see if I love kittens or have recently been to Las Vegas or stuff like that.

On the corporate side, I will go with whatever our IT people decide on, provided that it works. On the personal side, I use Carbonite backup, but other than that I want my stuff to be my stuff, and not potentially shared in some for or another with various advertisers. If Google buys Carbonite tomorrow, I cancel my service with them and tell them to delete everything I ever backed up on their servers.

The cloud is the future

Google is right, we shall all use the cloud... when we have one world government, eradicated poverty and religion, colonised Mars, and personal computers are stitched into our smart ware clothes.

Another example of the 'one-size-fits-all' mentality

Cloud computing is a great idea, imagine sitting up a mountain on holiday and someone needs some info about some meeting you had with Fred 7 weeks ago just some basic info about the agenda and who was there for example, tap-tappity tap on your phone and the document URL with all the correct info and formatting is there available for the other parties, you get on with your break without worrying about it.

However I work in a private finance house and the very thought of putting our data into databases other than the main set of DBs we already have causes the security and compliance folks to start sweating, anyone suggested cloud-computing for out data it would lead to hospitalisation for some of our legal bods! Ha ha!

Like all technology it has some amazing benefits but it most certainly not suitable for all purposes. As they say "Horses for courses.".

Dumb and dumber

If there's one thing that demonstrates just how stupid cloud apps are, it's that Google itself is developing a local client for Chrome. No wonder Girouard "completely sidestepped the question" when asked about a "native-code version of Google Apps".

It seems that the Emperor is developing a fig leaf.

"The Cloud" - old wine in new bottles

When I were a lad it was called "ftp" and "offsite backup". But those terms weren't sexy enough so along came "The Cloud" with all the marketing BS turned up to 11 and people really did think something new and inventive had come along.

Whats that I hear you say - "Its not just back-ups, you can work in the cloud too!" Err yeah , except I was telnet'ing to remote servers to do just that 20 years ago and Citrix for Windows had been around the block a few times too before Cloud Computing popped out of some marketdroids wet dream.

So someone please update me - what exactlty is new about "The Cloud" that wasn't around a decade or 2 ago?

Bunch o techno-luddites

Wow, I can smell the fear from across teh internets. What CEO needs opinionated techno-weenies who are always quite clear on what cannot be done, if someone else takes care of operating the businesses apps?

There is nothing inherently secure about keeping your data on your own premises. Just ask all the folks who have been hacked and/or had a massive data breach from their down data centers. I've had folks sit in front of me without a red face and say customer and employee data are too sensitive to put in the cloud. These are folks who use Salesforce for CRM and ADP for payroll processing. So, both are already in the cloud then? World has not ended yet? How 'bout that.

Not that I am a Google apps fan, as they can't tell you how your stuff is secured, which tends to make auditors very unhappy. And god forbid you got sued and needed to do electronic discovery of email using Google's "most relevant" search algorithm... when what you need is "exact match".

Fighting which government ?

«We'll fight the government if we need to fight the government. I think we've proven ourselves over time. Look at the China incident.» Shouldn't that quotation from M Girouard have been amended to read «We'll fight the Chinese government - with the help of Ms Clinton and the US State Department - if we need to fight the Chinese government. I think we've proven ourselves over time. Look at the China incident.» ? Myself I haven't noticed too many incidents lately in which Google demonstrated its independence from the US government. As M Girouard himself admits «That's not to say that a National Security Letter could be issued and we could be forced to turnover data without notifying you». That being said, any company located in the US is bound to obey US law, just as any company with activity in China is bound to obey Chinese law. But it would be seemly if representatives for Google could refrain from ostentatiously displaying anti-government credentials which, when examined closely, are found to be mostly vapourware....

Henri

What would you think of a laptop...

...that doesn't work on planes or trains, only works in densely-populated areas, and only works at any speed if there aren't any other laptops in the area?

That's the reality of cloud apps, and the future of Chrome OS as presently constituted. If you don't have continuous connection to a cell or wi-fi network, you don't have a working machine.

Google needs to develop something akin to an app-equivalent of DropBox: when the network's unavailable, you can continue working locally on the files, which are then synched to the cloud when the network's back in town.

If you still think cloud reliance is a good idea, consider the solar flare that just bounced off the Earth. If it had hit more squarely, you'd have lost your cloud for a while. And therefore your email, docs, spreadsheets, ...

the correct article title should be....

"Google Apps boss says cloud computing is HIS destiny" <- if we're all stupid enough to buy into the idea, he'll make a cool million (or 10)