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Every company has a vastly different definition of cloud computing. By far the worst I've seen is Microsoft's "Delayed at the Airport" commercial. She remote

Every company has a vastly different definition of cloud computing. By far the worst I've seen is Microsoft's "Delayed at the Airport" commercial. She remote desktop's into her home computer and watches a video - is this really the Cloud?

sp332 16y ago
Yeah, I think so. The "cloud" is the part of the network you don't have to care about. She doesn't care whether the video is on her home computer, or MS servers, or her laptop. It pretty much all works the same.
- watty 16y ago
  It's nothing more than a buzz word now. In the commercial they say "To the cloud" and then he uses remote desktop. This is something that could have been in a commercial 10+ years ago but is only appealing now due to the word "cloud" ("to the internet" isn't nearly as cool).
  - sp332 16y ago
    Really? Cheap laptops, high-bandwidth wireless, and first-party free file hosting (on Windows Live Mesh in this case), 10 years ago? The "cloud" may not have changed, but it is suddenly relevant (read: marketable) to a lot more people than it used to be. Hence the advertising.
  - maigret 16y ago
    Tell that to the Amazon and VMWare CTOs. It is also a buzz word, but there is a real underlying change in it - which is the change of IT from a former "custom setup" to standardized automated processes. And it's making waves in companies IT departments because it shakes the old model.
- roc 16y ago
  That's the exact reason it's a particularly horrible commercial though. She says "cloud" to refer to her machine. If she had turned it off before she left the house, would "the cloud" have gone away? It sticks out as being egregiously nonsensical because it violates the only remaining common property of what "the cloud" might ever have meant. The hackneyed and (mis)appropriated uses of "cloud" are almost innumerable at this point. But up until that commercial, at the very least they all agreed that data "in the cloud" doesn't become inaccessible if your home machine or ISP is non-functional.
matthiaswh 16y ago
Based off several interactions I have had with people who are not in a technical industry, I don't think the concept of the Cloud has hit mainstream. The fact that Microsoft is driving the first real advertising campaign for the Cloud is both good and bad. The bad, imo, is that Microsoft is such a giant and has such a large advertising budget that people will begin to associate "The Cloud" solely with them. The really bad, imo, is that they aren't doing a very good job explaining what the concept of cloud computing really is.
lukev 16y ago
The concept of the "cloud" will never matter to non-technical types, because, fundamentally, the only defining feature of what people are calling "cloud" is that it is an abstraction away from individual machines. Abstractions only matter to techies. End users shouldn't have to care either way.
ugh 16y ago
Being able to just type in my name and password on some new laptop and having all my stuff immediately available to me has a pretty cloudy feel to me. I’m not sure whether you should call it “cloud”, though, that only seems to be unnecessarily confusing. By the way, using my definition you would be perfectly justified in calling some pretty old technology “cloud computing”. A Gmail account you access with IMAP (vintage 1986) would be the prime example. What might be new is that the users usually don’t have to care about the technical details. When you are using IMAP you have to enter server names and other yucky stuff, that’s not the case with Dropbox.
- seabee 16y ago
  Cloud computing is not all that different from old mainframe setups. It's just a lot more interactive (and with 40 years of technological advancement). So the still-relevant artifacts of that era are at home in the 'cloud'. Another comparison: Netbooks marked a definite return to the thin client. Only now it's wireless.

sp332 16y ago

Yeah, I think so. The "cloud" is the part of the network you don't have to care about. She doesn't care whether the video is on her home computer, or MS servers, or her laptop. It pretty much all works the same.

watty 16y ago
It's nothing more than a buzz word now. In the commercial they say "To the cloud" and then he uses remote desktop. This is something that could have been in a commercial 10+ years ago but is only appealing now due to the word "cloud" ("to the internet" isn't nearly as cool).
- sp332 16y ago
  Really? Cheap laptops, high-bandwidth wireless, and first-party free file hosting (on Windows Live Mesh in this case), 10 years ago? The "cloud" may not have changed, but it is suddenly relevant (read: marketable) to a lot more people than it used to be. Hence the advertising.
- maigret 16y ago
  Tell that to the Amazon and VMWare CTOs. It is also a buzz word, but there is a real underlying change in it - which is the change of IT from a former "custom setup" to standardized automated processes. And it's making waves in companies IT departments because it shakes the old model.
roc 16y ago
That's the exact reason it's a particularly horrible commercial though. She says "cloud" to refer to her machine. If she had turned it off before she left the house, would "the cloud" have gone away? It sticks out as being egregiously nonsensical because it violates the only remaining common property of what "the cloud" might ever have meant. The hackneyed and (mis)appropriated uses of "cloud" are almost innumerable at this point. But up until that commercial, at the very least they all agreed that data "in the cloud" doesn't become inaccessible if your home machine or ISP is non-functional.

matthiaswh 16y ago

Based off several interactions I have had with people who are not in a technical industry, I don't think the concept of the Cloud has hit mainstream. The fact that Microsoft is driving the first real advertising campaign for the Cloud is both good and bad. The bad, imo, is that Microsoft is such a giant and has such a large advertising budget that people will begin to associate "The Cloud" solely with them. The really bad, imo, is that they aren't doing a very good job explaining what the concept of cloud computing really is.

lukev 16y ago

The concept of the "cloud" will never matter to non-technical types, because, fundamentally, the only defining feature of what people are calling "cloud" is that it is an abstraction away from individual machines. Abstractions only matter to techies. End users shouldn't have to care either way.

ugh 16y ago

Being able to just type in my name and password on some new laptop and having all my stuff immediately available to me has a pretty cloudy feel to me. I’m not sure whether you should call it “cloud”, though, that only seems to be unnecessarily confusing. By the way, using my definition you would be perfectly justified in calling some pretty old technology “cloud computing”. A Gmail account you access with IMAP (vintage 1986) would be the prime example. What might be new is that the users usually don’t have to care about the technical details. When you are using IMAP you have to enter server names and other yucky stuff, that’s not the case with Dropbox.

seabee 16y ago
Cloud computing is not all that different from old mainframe setups. It's just a lot more interactive (and with 40 years of technological advancement). So the still-relevant artifacts of that era are at home in the 'cloud'. Another comparison: Netbooks marked a definite return to the thin client. Only now it's wireless.