Andrew Samuel argues that cloud computing does not live up to the hype.
I've just returned from a useful two day event organised by UK Riders which posed the question: "Will the cloud save the sector?" I left with my answer, which is no, it will not.
In theory, we don’t need the new £8,000 server and don't need to replace each £500 PC every four years. We just need some cheap, basic, internet connecting screen and we are all set. If you have half a dozen computers or twice that or even more, you can readily see that there could be huge savings here.
Not quite though, I discovered. One expert I spoke to made great play of the theoretical capital savings and of this being the main impetus for us to consider throwing out (via recycling of course) all of our carbon emitting kit. Which is another issue entirely though no less important. But I got the distinct impression that the costs of doing this were not much lower than keeping an existing office based server network.
Not only that, but many cloud customers still keep their existing infrastructure "just in case the internet goes down" or "in case we want to work offline". What?
This issue did highlight an interesting factor though which is the transfer of costs from capital for physical equipment in the office which stores your work to revenue which pays for a service to store them off-site in the cloud.
Another chap staunchly believed that the capital savings issue was nonsense, not at all the primary benefit of the cloud, and that it was all about being able to amalgamate all of your systems and databases into an accessible anywhere, smooth as you like, office-in-your-pocket. And then I realised he just meant having a customer relationship management system on the internet. That's not the cloud, that's an online tool. More waffle.
Broadband not up-to-speed
But the absolute, bottom line reason as to why it will not save our sector is that we have rubbish broadband. We've ceased being annoyed and are no longer surprised when the big providers reel off their high performance, far reaching figures. All tosh and these days it just bores us to hear them.
Our message is very clear indeed and in no doubt whatsoever. A great many users in the UK, particularly rural users, do not have fit-for-purpose broadband to do what they want to do right now. So to suggest that they can store and access their precious data on the other end of a sluggish, intermittent or non-existent broadband connection, well, it's not going to happen.
At the event I likened the prospect to that of 3G introduction a few years ago which we were led to believe would transform our lives. What a joke that was. Yes, I can access the internet on my mobile phone, but I didn't know it was going to be slower than the auld dial-up connection I last experienced eight years ago.
Every time I use it, I can almost hear that high-pitched trilling as the modem rings in for its connection. Put kettle on love while I get connected to t'internet.
Carrier pigeons
This sort of thing may be hard to comprehend in large cities but it is a very real issue out of large cities. Many readers will be aware of the carrier pigeon story from a couple of weeks ago. Bear this mind, it was not back in 2002, it was in September 2010.
For those that missed it, ten pigeons were released from a farm in Yorkshire with USB keys attached containing a five-minute video. They were heading for Skegness. At the moment of their release, an upload of the video was initiated between the two locations. Ninety minutes later the pigeons had reached their destination and had a brew whilst only 24 per cent of the 300MB video file had uploaded.
The pigeons were four times faster than UK broadband. I understand BT has disputed the figures with a spokesperson helpfully reminding everyone that 99 per cent of homes could now get broadband. Apparently an attempt was made to hush up the story but the news was broken when the pigeons tweeted about it.
In summary then, there could be merit in the cloud concept, but our dirt tracks need upgrading to motorways if we expect them to carry heavy loads. So the cloud can't save us because it can't get to us.
