On another note, when did the term cloud computing replace the term software as a service? It certainly is more ambiguous, I guess.
I would have to assume 'marketing' is the answer to that one. At Uni, 2 of my subjects are doing a lot of teaching on 'cloud computing' and as far as I can tell a lot of people don't get it...
We had a guest lecturer come in and describe their business and how they used the cloud. (90% of their infrastructue is cloud based - amazon for datawarehousing and processing, etc).
I asked the two 'stupid' questions. "What about differences in laws between where the data is uploaded from, housed and processed"? and "what are ramifications for data loss on your part if a third party is holding your clients data screws up"?
The 1st question wasn't answered in ay detail, and the 2nd one was answered with "we have contracts in place". And people base their entire business and reputation on a contract with a third party?
The cloud is IMHO just another form of out-sourcing, and am waiting for one of the providers (google, amazon or one of the lesser known companies) for f*(&*k royally to see what the result is... Think about, some companies are using a cloud based system to hold *all* of their data, including customer records, etc. What happens if a service provider is bought out, and they decide to onsell all the data they have to a 3rd party. Any contract across international borders with a corporate takeover is the mix is going to mean jack sh*t.
