Cloud to be Tops in 10 Years
2020. I’ll have slowed down a bit physically, and hopefully I’ll be a bit wiser about life, but by then, one thing’s for sure – accessing software via cloud computing, versus the desktop, will be the standard.
This is the finding of a new survey by the Pew Research Center. The organization asked IT pros and other stakeholders around the world questions about technology, and the vast majority of respondents, nearly three-quarters, said that by 2010, most people will not use software on a general-purpose PC to do their work. Instead, they predict that application developers will develop for smart phones and other companies that provide Internet-based applications, rather than PC operating systems.
But just as we’re seeing today, 2020’s computing infrastructure will include a mix of private clouds, public clouds and internal servers.
Despite the sunny outlook, the availability of broadband, the ability of diverse systems to work together, security, privacy and quality of service were all issues that those polled cited. Others polled worried that vesting the majority of their data in a few large companies that constitute most of the cloud, such as Google, would limit the openness, innovation and creativity of the Internet.
Ten years from now, I have no doubt that doing business on the cloud will be more common than it is today – and that it’ll even be preferable (even in a hybrid environment). But what I’m even more sure of is how the need for monitoring of cloud-based apps and services will continue and grow. As more companies put their faith in cloud providers, they’ll also recognize the need to make sure those providers deliver.