Russ Daniels: A Cloud In Every Garage

We always love posts like this from mainstream mags such as Forbes.  This one is penned by Russ Daniels, described as the “Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Cloud Services Strategy” at HP.  Some very interesting points, including the parallel between the evolution brought upon by Henry Ford’s assembly line concept and the economic shift that we are experiencing now as the world transitions to a knowledge-based economy.  The HP “MagCloud” example he gives is very powerful, demonstrating how cloud-based services (and to a greater extent services delivered in a SOA framework) can open up services that were once so cost prohibitive that their availability was constrained to those with the deepest pockets.

Key quotes:

1. “The cloud makes it possible to deliver everything as a service–from business processes to personal interactions–and to create altogether new business models across industries.”
2. “…with this underlying infrastructure in place, both large and small companies can use technology to expand or invent services, open up markets and address some of the biggest challenges we face as a global society.”
3. “The cloud is making once-expensive information technology available to a mass market through a pay-per-use model. This promises to increase productivity and drive growth. Small and medium-sized businesses can leverage data to drive efficiencies and improve products and services.”