Leaving my e-mail on my ISP's server is convenient enough, but on the other hand anything I can't afford to lose is on local storage. I don't put really critical information into machine-readable form at all, even in encrypted form.
Microsoft's upcoming "cloud" announcement, does this clarify or confuse what the "cloud" is? (See:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304231204576405563616351454.html) Or is it whatever you wish it to be, even if it is not? Do you care? Is it just marketing buzz? I dont know, but I'm sticking to my hands-on circuits!
True enough. Just like with any social networking site I will be very careful as to what I store in the cloud. Music, why not? Pictures, why not? There's a whole bunch of stuff, however, I'd just as soon keep local.
Just wait until some evil hacker writes a cloud eating virus, and suddenly there is a shortage of all that data that was there a few seconds ago. Of course, nobody would ever be nasty enough to write a cloud eating virus, would they?
The fact is that if the only tool that you sell is a hammer, then everybody's problems start to look like nails, at least to the sales weasels. So there is a lot of hype about how it will solve all problems, but if one size fits all, it fits them poorly. That is always true.
I don't remember a single technology claiming a comprehensive solution to all problems. I remember lots of claims that any given technology was overhyped. Cloud technology offers a cost effective approach to permanent storage, but there are no claims to it being anymore foolproof than hardware storage. Anyone ever hácek a hard drive crash? Anyone ever get a scratched CD that was unreadable? Anyone ever have a motherboard fail?
What the cloud does is potentially reduce the cost of many portable drives by shifting storage off the SSD on the device, which means you need less Flash memory, which means the device can be cheaper and more available to the general public.
Claims of a universal solution belongs to the realms of politics and health foods.