There is huge emphasis on cloud-computing in China as it is a good answer to a weak IT infrastructure and thinly spread IT skills. Concentrating IT skills in cloud-computing centres makes a lot of sense. China Daily published data showing spending on cloud computing nearly doubling every year and estimated to amount to $60 billion this year.
“The Chinese government sees cloud computing as an infrastructure, which is quite different from Western countries, which have been focused on efficiency and cost reduction”
The result is spending in China on par with USA on cloud-computing. Just as Kenya is skipping wired networks and leaping into the wireless world, China is skipping the thick client paradigm and leaping into the world of cloud computing. It’s all good and helps them get better IT sooner and at lower cost.
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The cloud does not necessarily means thin-clients, Mr. Pogson.
The cloud actually means one simple thing — full governmental control over IT — government can shot it down whenever they like, government can get access to your files without you permission or even awareness about such intrusion.
So if you trust Microsoft, Google, Chines government, Canonical you can store in the cloud whatever you want, but don’t care anymore about such things as privacy, you will have none.
Many businesses – lawyers offices, insurance companies, banks, accountants, financial auditors – are not exactly eager to grasp the idea of the cloud.
iLia wrote, “government can get access to your files without you permission or even awareness about such intrusion.
So if you trust Microsoft, Google, Chines government, Canonical you can store in the cloud whatever you want,”.
If you think governments have nothing better to do than spy on their people these days, I have a bridge in NYC that I can sell you, cheap. Governments, while often being huge organizations, are tiny compared to the mountain of IT in most countries. They already have power to tax, search and seize. What more do you think they could get from IT? Central control of anything is fragile, including government so most governments find it easier to do what’s necessary rather than everything. Even the so-called “communist/socialist” governments have found it pragmatic to let Nature take its course in many ways. It’s easier to change a government than to control a country.
I don’t trust M$. They have the stated purpose to run all of IT by any means legal or not and they stink at whatever they try.
Governments are becoming more open and the cartel of power at the centres are diffusing. There are exceptions but they tend to by tiny countries in a lot of chaos.
Phenom wrote, “The cloud does not necessarily means thin-clients, Mr. Pogson.”
There are all kinds of stuff that can be put in the clouds: storage, computation, applications… What is left for the local PC? Just showing pix and sending clicks, what a thin client does. Granted most PCs are more general-purpose but the tendency is to move almost everything to thin clients: VDI, terminal server+thin client, cloud… all shift stuff from the local machine to the server for various reasons including saving cost, better performance, easier management, security, etc.
There are two large data-centers going up, one is located in Utah, the other in Maryland. All communications is recorded these days, and categorized for later retrieval if needed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/opinion/the-national-security-agencys-domestic-spying-program.html?_r=3&smid=fb-share?smid=yt-nytimes