More than three decades after the first developments into open source networking, cloud computing continues to take the world by storm (sorry, couldn't help myself).
It’s the usual suspects; Google, Microsoft, Apple and the almighty Amazon, who have been ducking it out on the ground for some time now. So it was no surprise when news came of their latest grand schemes to be named ‘King of The Cloud’.
Cloud Computing 101
For those playing along at home, rewind to 1982. IBM PC are looking to develop a fast, inexpensive connection which would enable shared network resources. Little did IBM know that this initial cloud computing concept would be the focus of technologies 30 years later.
Over the next twenty years, The Cloud network has been developed by software companies to build guest operating systems, governments to build communications and control shared resources and businesses to build web service offerings – enter the current king, Amazon in 2006.
The following year (2007) would see Amazon in good company, with the launch of DropBox; a file hosting and synchronized service, that would redefine the world of online file sharing and storage as a mere commodity. Fast forward to 2014 and we are seeing a huge number of companies entering into the space, each with their own cloud service offerings; iCloud, Sound Cloud and Creative Cloud are just a few, each offering something unique.
2014 Weather Forecast
Looking to the weather forecast for the year, we can see a continuation of the Amazon rain cloud that has been outperforming rivals for top spot. Microsoft are looking to close the gap with the announcement of the Azure ML; a new cloud based machine learning platform that can predict future events.
Using learning capabilities already available in several Microsoft products including Xbox and Bing, The Azure ML will enable companies to more quickly identify and utilise data sets in order to build applications and API’s that can predict future events.
Google’s response? To start beaming internet from its high altitude balloons next year, otherwise known as, ‘Project Loon’. Well played Google, well played!
So as the puffy white stuff passes my window, I’m calling it – game on for the giants, while we mere mortals keep our eyes on the skies…so to speak.
