Recently I told you about a positive cloud report from IDC Government Insights. The week this report was issued, a high profile technology professional came out that same time and "dissed" the cloud.
As reported by CNET, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak clearly isn't a fan. He used terms such as "horrendous" to describe the future of storing data in the cloud, and predicted "a lot of horrible problems in the next five years."
He went on to say that we can expect pain in part because of the legal aspects ("With the cloud, you don't own anything. You already signed it away," he said). And he added that "The more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we're going to have control over it."
It is understandable that the founder of a company famous for championing a closely guarded ecosystem would be so concerned about a perceived loss of control. Any new mass technology must endure the legitimate scrutiny of possible misuse and develop best practices to avoid it. This is why policy management and enforcement exist.
Control is a legitimate concern, as we talked about just recently. But maybe Mr. Wozniak has just been hanging out with the wrong cloud people. If you choose your enterprise cloud provider wisely, and vet them properly, then data control and ownership and security won't become significant issues.
This is why Sprint will be providing the choice of various SaaS offers, in which a customer can choose and enforce selected best practices through policy management, controlling who can see and use the data.
And just in case we need to reinforce this point, a lot also depends on your route to the cloud as well. If you choose your service provider wisely (we can make a recommendation!), then you know that you will have the security, reliability, and scalability that your business demands in your connection to the cloud.
So what do you think of Wozniak's position on the cloud? Has he lost touch with IT reality, or will Apple's controlling environment cost them their competitive advantage? Let me know your thoughts.
