4 ms·

My mom was a mainframe programmer and says the cloud it is just like what they had 50 years ago with timesharing but a different name. I just smile and nod. Is

• notalaser 11y ago
  You aren't timesharing your tiny mainframe, so it is quite different, yes. The cloud is precisely what your mom had on a mainframe 50 years ago, including virtualization, on-the-fly scaling of resources (maybe a little more difficult because of the larger equipment), and even renting time on computers you didn't have in your offices, since not every institution could afford their own computer.
• geocar 11y ago
  Providing an employee with equipment (such as a laptop personal computer) to do their job is (legally) different than leasing equipment to a contractor, or transfer-pricing between departments in a corporation. Remember that a timeshare was very expensive and that those costs were accounted for carefully not only for the purposes of internal billing but also for benefit-analysis.
• throwawayaway 11y ago
  Both statements are correct. Remember that it was a personal computing 'revolution'. It would be a great step backwards to accede power to cloud service providers. Computing at the whim of others aka timesharing. Smile and nod but your mother has seen a few cycles of the industry.