I read an interesting article presenting the results of a survey made on the streets of London. People had been asked what cloud computing is. Extremely funny answers:

25% – “a data center in the sky”
20% – “something Microsoft advertised”
10% – “global warming caused by overheating computers”
10% – “trendy club in Soho”
35% – a new way to access IT services over the Internet

Wow! I did not know my private emails were dancing all night long in Soho, but what can I say, they provide nice collaboration features ;).

Leaving the joke behind, should cloud providers worry about this outcome? Should it be a signal for them to start talking more about the cloud with their end-users, not just with companies? Maybe that end-users don’t even care how the service is delivered, they only know that it works. There are various approaches to this issue, like:

Companies should not be concerned

At this time, the consumer market hasn’t yet taken full advantage on a larger scale of the benefits provided by cloud computing. Based on the increasing adoption rate by service providers, businesses and ultimately end-users predicted for the next couple of years, the learning curve will be sharp, people will fast learn what it means and it will become a part of their every day life. Coming from one of the Top 20 Cloud Platform Vendors for 2011 created by CRN, this answer is straightforward and gives a pretty comforting idea on what lies ahead.

End-users do not need to know what cloud computing is

For them it should be as simple as clicking an app in the interface, knowing nothing about the technicalities behind. I agree with the second part of this statement, that users shouldn’t care about how clouds are built and how they work, but in the same time, I strongly believe that people should know what their options are in order to make an educated choice. Knowing the options implies judging the benefits, so ultimately that means knowing what Cloud computing is.

Going back to the “Soho definition of the cloud”, there are two possible scenarios:

• • go to a club where you pay at least 3 beers, even if you only drink 2, because that’s the house rule and when switching to red wine you have to wait for the waiter to bring it from a hidden cellar and make you pay for the entire bottle, even if you want one glass.

OR

• go to a club where you can drink as many beers/wine/vodka/whatever as you want, paying only for what you consume

I guess most people would go to the second club, if there are no other important differences between the two. Understanding the cloud value is easy :).

I invite you to watch this amazing, breath-taking video. For those interested on how it was done, you can find more details here.

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

The same guy also produced the next video, with the amazing Aurora Borealis.

The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

This was shot at the border of Russia and Norway, while the previous one was taken from the highest mountain in Spain, which is also the home of the Teide astronomical observatory.