The announcement by Apple of its soon to be launched iCloud service is significant on many levels. Cutting through the hype that usually surrounds any new launch by Apple (they have written the manual on effective marketing and PR!) there is a serious statement of intent as to the way they are directing their resources and development for the future.
What this means for The Cloud generally, of course, is that with one statement from Apple, The Cloud has dramatically come of age and, if it wasn’t before, is now mainstream and should be considered as the principal operating paradigm for the future. No longer can it be looked on as a bit geeky or esoteric. It is now equal to the major operating systems currently in use.
Quote from the Times of June 7th 2011, itself quoting Giles Cottle, Senior Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media:
“….It was always going to take someone like Apple to really educate mass market consumers about the value of Cloud-based services. We are, it appears, on the cusp of that moment” and,
Quote from Jim Hemmer,CEO of mobile internet specialists Antenna – “….iCloud marks the tipping point for the Cloud”
These are significant statements and only reinforce what I have been writing about -2011 is the year of the Cloud. Professional firms ignore this at their peril as a generation of entrepreneurs who use the Cloud as standard will expect their professional advisors to communicate with them in the same way. After all, no one would consider not using computers in their everyday work – the same will now apply to the Cloud.
Together with Microsoft’s launch of Office 365, Google’s growth in its applications and the Chrome operating system, The Cloud is here to stay…ignore it at your peril!