Menacing iCloud looms over Google

“Amongst the raft of features announced by Apple at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, the announcement of iCloud was in our view the most significant. It is as well the one announcement that got somewhat lost in press coverage as the iTunes in the cloud music sharing service overshadowed what is in our view a real game changer for the personal and groupware productivity solutions markets,” MGI Technology writes. “iCloud, in our view, is the first cloud solution from a major vendor that has a clear brand identity; an understandable, compelling offer; and is likely to re-shape multiple markets in the then and there 12 months.”

MGI Technology writes, “From here on, [with Apple's ad-free iCloud], any individual professional or a small business or a group can easily and freely establish a cloud-based, shared and synchronized office environment. This is a direct shot at Google Docs as so then as at Microsoft. With the simple announcement of iCloud as a free productivity solution, Apple has quickly outpaced Microsoft and Google, both of whom have been trying now for a few years to carve out a viable productivity cloud strategy and are now forced to play catch up.”

1) Apple has set the value of the best OS on the planet at $30 for use with all of your home computers. Do you in effect think Microsoft can sell their crap for $100 or $300 per PC!

2) Apple set the iWorks cost way pursuant to this agreement that of Microsoft office. And Apple is using a billion dollar server farm to keep your non Microsoft files in sync with your iOS devices and your Macs.

3) Apple removed the need to own any computer if you only want an iOS device. Just cut Microsoft out of the iOS device market.

4) Steve Jobs just landed the Apple spaceship on the same plot of land that HP owned. The world will come to see the architectural marvel that was built over the dead body of the largest PC box maker. Very symbolic. Many armies and civilizations do this to crush the spirits of the defeated people in the land.

If Microsoft were to set its Windows OS at $30, expect Microsoft’s revenue and profits to plunge deeply. With Apple’s iCloud strategy another pillar of Microsoft cash cows, Microsoft Office would be in all seriousness threatened. The Titanic is sinking fast and the band is playing to calm down the board of Microsoft.

The problem is that just about no one buys Windows in the box. They buy it installed on a new computer; the reason they buy new computers is to abandon the bag of hurt that the previous Window box became as it was used over a year or three. As well, remeber MS has issued new OS releases so infrequently that they about correspond to the hardware update cycle.

The only people who buy Windows boxed are geeks – either for their home built system, or because they are MS fanbois who just have to suffer with Redmond’s latest bundle of bugs.

Disaster planning – What is the plan when your cloud provider experiences downtime? It sure is not in your hands at that point. God knows how long you might be waiting earlier you are back in business.

MS and Google do offer the hardware and software to build your own ‘private cloud’. I’m hoping Apple looks to do the same with iCloud, that would as a matter of fact put them in a good place.

If you think there is ANY chance that Apple is going to outsource your data, you are sorely mistaken. I’m sure Apple is quite good at security and disaster planning.

I feel confident that Apple will state all this in their SLA. They have to in order to capture the corporate market. They have BCP’s to maintain as so then.

The datacenter

Its utterly possible they could bring in contractors at the datacenter, they have done it in other areas of Apple. Its ‘just support’

Apple doesn’t target corporate users, or haven’t you figured that out but? See the utter lack of marketing and subsequent termination of Xserve. Apple builds its products for consumers, who at the time demand to use the best devices in their corporate jobs, and in doing so infiltrates the corporate world that way.

I think you’re jumping to conclusions, just like most people. Try waiting for Apple to release more information. As well, it’s not like your data is ONLY stored on iCloud, UNLIKE what Google wants you to do through Chrome. Your data is on the whole stored on your devices/Macs/PCs, it’s just synced through iCloud.

I agree. Apple’s iCloud services were never meant to enhance or replace the enterprise solutions available to corporations.

But, I’m sure tens-of-thousands of small businesses, organizations, academia, along with tens-of-millions of households, will find it very useful.

Is that why MS was actually late with Vista and Google is in perpetual Beta… Apple keeps moving the goal posts and it’s why they’ll never score!

Security? In effect? We after all have people beating that old red herring greased drum? Seems you don’t in fact understand what Apple is doing. If the data center washed out to sea, the data nonetheless resides on the individual machines of desired. If you think of the iCould as a tuple space sync forum at that time you know that the security issue is something that 80s IT guys however ramble on because they on the whole don’t understand innovation that has been in use since the late 90s in the form of redundant web services. Keep beating that drum! I’ll be betting on cloud services being inevitable, just like I’m betting on SSDs replacing hard drives.

Apple has three data centers at either end of the U.S. Backbone, with more to come. Gas fueled backup and strategic stores means they can run in spite of any grid disruptions. If a disaster happens that wipes out all three of the iData centsers straightway, you will be having bigger problems than missing spreadsheets.

With all those concerns, I would have to advise not to get on the Internet or use it. Since all data is available from your ISP to the person you communicate with at the other end.Just use a standalone computer and work with the applications you have on it and make sure nothing is uploaded to an Internet connected device and you will be safe. No worries on downtime or danger of losing data. That will be in accordance with your control. No worries off the net. Many worries on the Net- then, if you can forget all with ignorance is bliss attitude.

Little harsh

That’s a little harsh. The developers of those fine apps have not been getting a “free ride”. On the contrary, their apps have made the iPhone a more attractive device.

Absolutely! Dropbox and Evernote will be on all of my devices for the forseeable future. There are however quite a few people without iOS devices out there and many who will not be able to get Lion, so I’m glad high-quality alternatives exist!

The keynote

I must have missed something while the keynote.Unless you want to call email the “productivity”, with the imap protocol already years available to sync the mailbox status on different devices, all that I saw is a highly resource expensive data redundancy mechanism that can barely be controlled.Office 365 and Google apps are a completely different cloud concept.With the lack of control, I will consider in all seriousness if I am willing to subscribe to iCloud. For me, the different devices have completely different purposes. In a word I have little need to get everything synced to each of the devices. And the part that I in effect would love to see, iWork documents synced between my iPad and my iMac, was not presented as an option.

Yes, you did miss that most important part, because Steve made it very clear, meanwhile to me and everyone else I talked to, that the iCloud would allow you to do just that. Create and save a pages, numbers or keynote doc on your mac running Lion and that doc is without warning available on icloud from any iPod, iPhone or iPad running IOS5 sharing the same appleID. That simple, and that elegant.

Do you as a matter of fact think Apple isn’t going to give you choices on what syncs to iCloud and what doesn’t? Come on, get real.

iCloud isn’t even going to be fully available until this fall, so everyone needs to cool their jets, stop gossiping like little ladies, and wait for Apple to release more details. At the time decide if you want to use iCloud or not, and bitch appropriately.

Really? Do you run your own mail server from your home computer? Where do you think all your email is kept? In the Cloud. I don’t think you realize just how much of your information is already kept in the cloud. Apple has been running these “cloud” services for a decade now, and as far as I can recall, have never had a security breach.

What scares me is just how many small companies or business professionals have hotmail.com or gmail.com email addresses and expect me to send them confidential info.

Apple now owns the term ‘cloud’ I know the service is called ‘iCloud’ however people will hear cloud and think of Apple.

The “cloud” for a long

We’ve all been using the “cloud” for a long, long time. We just never as a matter of fact thought of it as such. I truly think the timing is right for this to go big-time and Apple is positioned in the extreme well to deliver the cloud service in ways that others simply can’t.

I don’t see the cloud completely replacing the desktop drive anytime before long and I don’t think Apple is as a matter of fact expecting that to happen either. This is more about convenience and simplifying the way people store and manage their content and certain types of data. I doubt the Pentagon or the State Department is truly going to use cloud services anytime before long either.

Overall, I do think this is quite significant. Apple is again taking the initiative though this concept has been around for quite a during. It’s like the iPod, iPhone and the iPad in that the technologies for such devices have been around long previously they came to being. It took Apple to package ‘em all up after a fashion that reached the masses.

Real revenue or profit generator spontaneously

I’m betting Apple will succeed again in that manner with iCloud however not as a real revenue or profit generator spontaneously, yet as a service that adds furthermore value to the entire iOS/iTunes/Mac ecosystem. The gap between Apple and the competition is just growing wider and wider by the day.

Having been a Mac user since the late-80′s and having lived through the dark ages of the 90′s, it’s in effect amazing to see what Apple is achieving right now and how they’ve turned the table on Microsoft. It in fact is a sweet thing to see Microsoft get pummeled by Apple and on the defensive – cowering and retreating from the assault.

Back in ’96, such a scenario was simply unimaginable. So then, Apple just can’t relent and they’ve got to keep applying the pressure. As well, Apple is a consumer electronics company and doesn’t need to be on the bleeding edge as far as introducing the latest gee-whiz technologies to the masses.

Let the competition do the “field R&D” for the Apple-hatin’ nerd crowd who populate the geek sites. Apple is all about milking every last ounce of existing mainstream technologies previously adopting something new for the masses. This is but another way that Apple is playing the competition like a drum.

The only service that offers such a broad device

It is the only service that offers such a broad device and OS support with apps for iPhone/iPad, BlackBerry, Android, Symbian, not to mention your computer!

When MS decided to bundle/give IE away free since it could not compete at any price with NetScape it got them into legal trouble. If it weren’t for Google’s free offerings, Apple’s iCloud action might get them into similar legal troubles.

What I have been thinking

This is specifically what I have been thinking. During others seem to only see what is in the surface. This guy gets the real impact that Apple’s newly announced initiatives will have. Sure, the others will once again attempt to emulate this the fastest way possible, however Apple, once again is several years ahead of it’s competition.