

Please Stop Saying 'Cloud' - msredmond
http://redmondmag.com/blogs/it-decision-maker/2011/04/stop-saying-cloud.aspx

======
Groxx
The IT community is telling the IT community to stop saying "cloud" because
the marketing community says it too much.

Yes, this will work.

It's a phrase that people, _normal_ people, are somewhat comprehending. That
makes it one of the most well-known computer-related terms around. Why should
it be abandoned, just because it's vague? The non-geek world (ie, _the world_
) rarely gets this far into comprehending the geek world, why change it
underneath them?

~~~
PatrickTulskie
No one actually knows what it is. A few weeks ago, my sister asked me "What's
the cloud?" and I had to explain it to her. She still doesn't understand it.

Microsoft and IT marketing fools in general are just throwing around a buzz
word, except that this one is confusing to people due to its incorrect and
frequent usage.

~~~
Groxx
They do tend to have a vague understanding that it involves the internet,
though. Which is all it really implies, with an emphasis on off-site storage
and/or computation when spoken by a geek.

This is a brand-new term, relatively speaking. Ask people what a browser is,
something they've had for years and use for hours every day:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ>

------
baggachipz
The Windows 7 "to the cloud!" commercials enrage me. Remoting to your home PC
from the airport is not "the cloud."

~~~
PatrickTulskie
Seriously. Those commercials play a pretty significant role in confusing
everyone as to what the cloud is. It's going to become 2011's Web 2.0 buzz
word.

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toddh
So an IT director doesn't want to outsource IT to the cloud? Shocking :-) And
I guess they didn't talk about private clouds at the conference.

~~~
johngalt
It may surprise you, but some people have trouble being responsible for things
they have no control over.

When outsourcing to the 'cloud' works it's evidence that internal IT is
flawed. When outsourcing doesn't work it's evidence that internal IT is
flawed.

~~~
toddh
No surprise at all, but we are all continually depending on things we have no
control over, hardware, software, people, networks, politics, disasters,
health, etc. In the cloud you have the option of a private cloud, which is a
lot of control with a better operations model. There are several clouds to
select from, some are less wild west than Amazon, so you do have control in
your selection criteria, your negotiated SLAs, your negotiated support plan,
your architecture and deployment policies, your disaster and recovery and
redundancy plans, and your strategies for moving to another cloud. So you have
a very high degree of control if you think about it, act to take it, and make
smart decisions. What you can't do is just move an enterprise wholesale into
the cloud, but that's a good thing.

------
ChuckMcM
I'm sure the same guy complained about the word 'Grid' or the word 'Cluster'
or the words 'Tier 1.'

Buzzwords come and go, when they get over used they are more confusing than
clarifying. Since many (if not most) of the folks who buy computers don't have
any formal education in computers and what they do, the only way they can
reason about them is by analogy. Reasoning by analogy begets buzzwords
(tautology). Amongst professionals, reasoning by analogy is an OK place to
start but it should quickly solidify into something you can walk back to first
principles.

I once heard someone say that they called it 'cloud' computing because "You
can't touch it, if you're in the middle of it you can't navigate, and sooner
or later its going to dump a pile of crap on you and ruin your picnic." Seemed
like they 'got it.'

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schmittz
I always believe in using a term correctly, no matter how confusing it is.
It's not imorotant whether people understand what exactly the cloud is, but
they should understand that VPN/remote desktop is not using the "cloud" and
email just barely qualifies. This phenomenon happens with other terms like
"nanotech" just as frequently. The solution isn't necessarily to teach
everyone what the technical meaning is, it's to not apply it liberally to
situations that don't qualify.

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sirlancer
The headline reminded me of a video of Larry Ellison:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UYa6gQC14o>

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HardyLeung
My site Tagxedo (<http://www.tagxedo.com>) makes is a word cloud app, so
naturally I set up a Twitter search on the phrase "word cloud", and I track it
using Tweetdeck.

However, I think at least 1/3 of the tweets captured by this search is of the
form:

"Stop using the word cloud!"

"If I hear the word 'cloud' one more time my head will explode!"

and so on.

------
wglb
Disagree.

Let's stop saying "Please Stop Saying".

------
ascendant
This guy blames the IT marketing industry. I blame everyone (including myself)
that ever handed a management-type a Visio diagram with a cloud graphic
representing the Internet.

