Age of the cloud over before it begins?

Washington - A US software industry report on Wednesday chided Brazil, China and India for policies it said threatened the future of cloud computing, however also took aim at developed countries just as Germany that did then on its inaugural scorecard.

The Business Software Alliance

The Business Software Alliance, which represents US industry heavyweights just as Microsoft, said Brazil finished last in its survey of 24 countries, earning only 35.1 points out a possible 100 because of its policies in areas such free trade, security, data privacy and cybercrime.

India, which has the world's second-largest software industry afterwards the United States, and China, whose information and communications innovation sector is expected to near double to $389 billion by 2015, as well were in the bottom six, with scores of 50.0 and 47.5, respectively.

Cloud computing refers to providing software, storage, computing power and other services to clients from remote data centres over the Web. Demand for cloud-based software is rising rapidly because the approach allows companies to start using new programs faster and at lower cost than traditional products that are installed at a customer's own data centre.

A major purpose of the report is to rally the international “research community around the need for greater harmonisation of laws so a in fact global cloud can come about,” said Robert Holleyman, president of the US software group.

The 24 countries included in the survey represent 80 percent of the global information and communications research industry. They were scored in seven areas, which as well included intellectual property protection, infrastructure and support for industry-led standards to promote smooth data flows.

Tough security measures are as well needed, however some countries just as China that have implemented Internet filtering or censorship regimes could thwart develop of cloud computing and the digital economy, the report said.