Cloud Computing

In the Economist, can you can find an interesting discussion about a recent trend in the software space – cloud computing. Cloud computing is remarkable, as it may shift the equillibrium in the software space, and as it might increase innovation and competition.

Cloud Computing

Here is what it is about:

„…The idea is that computing will increasingly be delivered as a service, over the internet, from vast warehouses of shared machines. Documents, e-mails and other data will be stored online, or „in the cloud“, making them accessible from any PC or mobile device.“ – says The Economist in a → larger discussion

The large benefit is that users can approach their data from everywhere – a web-browser is sufficient. Further your data is stored in the internet, so that it is somehow secured (at least compared to the storage on a computer, which might get stolen). On the other hand, the security of data might be a disadvantage of this service delivery method – as recent cases show, where sensitive data was stolen from a service offering sitting in the cloud.

Hot Topic

That Cloud Computing is on the way to become a hot topic, can be seen in the fact that Microsoft started to enter this space today with their new service Azure, and is now attacking Google, or Apple, who are already part of the cloud.

On → their introductory site can you find a more detailled description of the use cases, and mor insights into the different service delivery scenarios.

I think that the development towards cloud computing will lead to the following results:

• Companies and users will increasingly start to see software as a service. This requires Product Managers with technology focus to rethink what they know about users, and their requirements.
• As with all new technologies, we will see an intense discussion about the areas where cloud computing makes sense, and where not. The probability is high that the current hype will be followed by a period in which the usage of cloud will be seen more realistically, as it might be seen today.
• The focus of innovation will shift to open systems and services, as cloud computing has to do with „reuse“
• Usability of technical products is already an important topic now, but it will become even more important in future, as users will increasingly use web browsers, and web usability standards, to run an application.

Weiterführende Informationen

Das Original dieses Artikels ist auf →Der Produktmanager erschienen (©Andreas Rudolph). Regelmäßige Artikel gibt es über die (→Mailingliste), oder indem Sie →mir auf Twitter folgen. In der Online Version finden Sie hier die versprochenen weiterführenden Links:

This entry was posted on Mittwoch, November 18th, 2009 at 6:56 pm. It is filed under PM-Themen, Thema des Tages and tagged with Consumer-Strategies, English Content, PM Strategie, Wettbewerb. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.