Silicon Shecky

So Microsoft is declaring this year, yet again, the year of cloud computing. I’m going to a meeting with a different partner on cloud computing. You hear that cloud computing is the wave of the future and can save SMBs money. while all that might be true based on a cost per on site server and maintenance versus cost of having a hosted solution, there are reasons why cloud computing hasn’t quite taken off the way everyone figures it will.

The biggest issue with hosted solutions, otherwise known as cloud computing, can be summarize in one word, bandwith. From experience with my clients, they get a T1 line, a business class cable line, or some other line that at best offers them maybe 3MB upstream and 6MB downstream. Most use T1′s which is only 1.5MB up and down stream. Heck I have clients that constantly complain about their speed, and yet are not willing to pay more than the $500-$1000 that they are already paying for Internet access. Some have remote locations where a user or two sits, and then complains about load times (even when they are just going into a terminal server) because of lack of bandwith.

Now, you take an average SMB office and the people in it. for a 5person office, you have e-mail, documents, maybe some web sites they need to connect to. Now add on the family type atmosphere that allows, music streaming, YouTube, and all sorts of other fun stuff that can eat up bandwith. All of a sudden that T1 is filled. Now if you try to move that server up to the cloud, you hit more traffic that needs to go up and down that 1.5MB pipe. Talk about lag city.

Unfortunately, we are a culture where T1 is fast has been ingrained in our brains. My home Internet has 1.5MB upstream but is 18MB downstream. Yeah, that’s 12 times as fast. People who have Verizon’s FIOS can get 50-100MB up and down. A T1 line now compared to what one can get for their house for way less, is like a 36K modem compared to a T1 10 years ago. The pricing for a T1 is way out of whack with the times, and faster speeds for business become cost prohibitive. The slow upgrade of the ISPs to a full cost effective fiber solution is the biggest barrier to point of entry for cloud computing.

The day will come when bandwith will be affordable enough that cloud computing will take off. That day though, is not here yet.

Apple has announced the long rumored iPad. Will the iPad bring about a new age of tablet PC growth or not is the real question. I say no.

It will bring about a series of wars with the eBook readers. Looking at the specs and what the iPad does, I can’t call it a tablet PC. You load software from the app store like the iPhone. You can’t just go out and buy software for it. There is no CD/DVD drive. Heck even the developer kit is included as part of the new iPhone developer kit. How is this a tablet PC instead of an overgrown iPod touch (there is no phone or camera on the iPad also) with eBook capabilities?

Microsoft has been trying to crack the whole tablet PC area for years. They have come a long way, but its still not perfect. The plus side is that if you get a tablet from a vendor like Lenovo, its a laptop with a special screen than can rotate into a position on top of the keyboard so you have a tablet. You get the best of both worlds, even though the OS is still shaky (I have not seen the tablet features of Windows 7 to make a comparison with).

Lets look at the other issue with the iPad. The versions with cellular capabilities are partnered with AT&T. We all know about the overtaxed network due to the iPod. Not only that but most of AT&T’s coverage areas are still 2G compared to 3G. If the iPad takes off as a gadget, and that is what I look at it as, AT&T is going to have more problems.

The iPad’s price could be its downfall in the near term. With the way the economy is, I can’t see why someone would choose this over a lower end laptop in the same price range.