Don’t just hate it when …

I was just in the middle of writing an article on “clouds” when my article disappeared into one (and of course I’m such an expert on this software that I have no idea how to retrieve it). Therefore I’ll just start again in slightly less cheery state of mind …

Reading my local computer rag “Computerworld” I came across the following article: “Gartner: Aussies to shun cloud computing this year … Pragmatic attitude of local IT managers cuts through the marketing hype”. (So yes, now you know where I reside.)

There’s a corker of a line in here: “The cloud name give a sense that anything will apply to it … it can be considered a large amorphous concept, but to an Aussie that’s not useful.”

Not useful? If you can’t cook a Shrimp on it or crack a tinnie with it then of course it’s not useful. The article goes on to state “About 50% of businesses said they will increase investment in virtualisation, on top of an already high investment” and “Cloud is nothing more than a further step … a continuation of trends”.

So lets look at this “cloud” stuff. It’s pretty hard not to read about it these days … virtual flavour of the month as far as I can tell. However I have a problem with the name … “Cloud” is just plain too vague to really mean anything useful to the average IT Manager struggling under the pressure of keeping costs down, doing more with less and generally getting stressed at his/her lot in life.

Try going to your boss and telling him/her … “we need a cloud in the backoffice to enable virtualisation of all server and desktops to provide software as a service throughout the corporate infrastructure”. You’re likely to get a “clout” across the ear rather than a “cloud” as you intended.

The term “cloud” is great for journalists, bloggers and politicians … talk all day without saying anything, but it doesn’t seem to have jelled too well with Joe Public Computer Professional and it certainly isn’t finding a home with the economic decision maker in business … your Finance Manager for example.

So to lessen the confusion, clear the indecision and illuminate all those in the dark, I’m suggesting a new term be used instead of “cloud” … “large vague grey computing concept”.

That way, the magazine headline could have read: “Gartner: Aussies to shun large vague grey computing concept this year”.

Now that makes much more sense.

Ciao
Neil