Stormy days for the cloud

Grazed from USAToday. Author: Kathleen Day.

Could we be on the verge of witnessing a shakeup in the cloud? That’s the question looming over the $47 billion cloud-computing industry: whether the booming industry is having what Silicon Valley refers to as "a BlackBerry moment," when doubts about a technology’s adequacy threaten sales to the point that a company is doomed.

The answer? Maybe. Because big changes are forecast for the American side of the cloud-computing industry. Most people picture cloud computing in terms of email — using Gmail (cloud-based), say, rather than Outlook (desktop software). But that’s just the retail — and arguably less important — side of the business…

The cloud also has a gigantic wholesale side that provides backroom operations for just about every major company you interact with on myriad everyday tasks at home and work — from file sharing and banking to filling out health claims and storing photos online. Cloud services offer an outsourcing haven that has rendered many basic in-house computer jobs obsolete…

Read more from the source @ http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/04/16/ozy-cloud-computing-security-problems/7776729/

Subscribe to the CloudCow bi-monthly newsletter @ http://eepurl.com/smZeb