Microsoft to battle in the clouds

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Cloud computing.
In the beginning there were these big huge "Servers" , and these little tiny "Terminals". The terminals contacted the servers , which ran all the applications and the terminal just displayed the results.

This was called standard Client-Server architecture.

Later we moved to cheap powerful computers and have everything run on the "terminal" which had more processing power than the old servers.

And now we have cloud computing , which isn't a new thing, it's the old Client-Server thing given new cloths.


Microsoft has unveiled a cloud computing service, in which data and applications will not be stored on individuals' computers.


Cloud computing is such a bad idea. The reason you moved your data and programs offline to your private computer was to keep your stuff private. In this day and age of beg/borrow/steal customer information and use it to spam spam spam, the idea is worse and worse.

You no longer keep your privacy because you're an evil do-er. You're keeping it because you don't want your in box stuffed with viagra ad's.

You're doing it because you don't want to change your email address every thirty days because you keep getting spammed to death.

You're doing it because you don't want criminals opening five credit cards in your name , racking up the balance's , and vanishing, leaving you with a trashed credit rating and creditors barking at your heels for stuff you didn't even buy.

They already have programs that sift through the old user groups looking for email addresses to add to their lists so they can spam the heck out of anyone who dares post on them. I can imagine them doing the same with every single document you store on their servers. Now not only do you get spammed, but all your friends and family and customers (if you're running a business) get spammed too. And it all starts when they sent that letter to you ... are you selling my email address ? Is that how your business makes a living , you sell all your customers email addresses and spam them ? I can see the accusations now.

We wont even discuss the idiocy of using microsoft products to compete with microsoft itself (why do you think google search engines run on an array of Linux machines ?).

Keep your data on your own machines. There's enough free word processors and spread sheets out there (abi word , and Gnumeric) that you don't need cloud computing for nothing, they're just not widely advertised. An old clunker, a free copy of Linux and a free copy of a mail server program (apache come to mind) and your company has cheap internal mail , and you don't even need virus protection (Linux box..immune) especially if you decline to connect to the outside world and use the box for "internal only , no internet support" use. Why does a lowly clerk need internet access anyways ? That should be limited to a small handful of people and not everyone and the dog for most companies anyways (computer tech support companies where the techies are constantly getting drivers and googling new problems in new hardware come to mind as the obvious exception)