Cloud

antielvis

I think many of you need to take the stats you read with a grain of salt. Way back in the 90s (I was around then) IBM released study after study that online shopping was going to decimate the bricks and mortar retail world. I remember reading articles about how these specialists fear what would happen to shopping malls. They foresaw a day when your local mall would be closed down. No such thing happened.

In theory the Cloud sounds like a good idea because proponents of the Cloud only emphasis the GOOD things about it (lower costs). They don't mention the expense of upgrading their network infrastructure. They don't mention the risk of having your data stored elsewhere. What happens if the Cloud provider doesn't pay the bills and their connectivity is cut? How about if a Canadian company puts their technical data on US server & that data falls under the Patriot Act?

Further to that, what about security? We are constantly seeing high profile hacks at all levels. Well known banks, governments, businessess...all being compromised. Sure, it's "only" their webserver or DB server in the DMZ, but..that's not what the public sees. The public sees that THEIR data was stolen.

In the mid term future, I can see perhaps hybrid clouds, but more likely you'll see private clouds & virtual desktops. I don't think you're going to see many companies move their entire server infrastructure to the Cloud. Good ideas may see like good ideas, but sometimes people forget about something I call reality.

Finally, I think what you will see is some companies that will "lowball" the price of the cloud much like web hosting companies did the same. The result will be pathetic service. You get what you pay for. People will sour on the experience and the cloud will be much slower coming into fruitation than the service providers make it out to be.

Novalith478

antielvis wrote: »

I think many of you need to take the stats you read with a grain of salt. Way back in the 90s (I was around then) IBM released study after study that online shopping was going to decimate the bricks and mortar retail world. I remember reading articles about how these specialists fear what would happen to shopping malls. They foresaw a day when your local mall would be closed down. No such thing happened.

In theory the Cloud sounds like a good idea because proponents of the Cloud only emphasis the GOOD things about it (lower costs). They don't mention the expense of upgrading their network infrastructure. They don't mention the risk of having your data stored elsewhere. What happens if the Cloud provider doesn't pay the bills and their connectivity is cut? How about if a Canadian company puts their technical data on US server & that data falls under the Patriot Act?

Further to that, what about security? We are constantly seeing high profile hacks at all levels. Well known banks, governments, businessess...all being compromised. Sure, it's "only" their webserver or DB server in the DMZ, but..that's not what the public sees. The public sees that THEIR data was stolen.

In the mid term future, I can see perhaps hybrid clouds, but more likely you'll see private clouds & virtual desktops. I don't think you're going to see many companies move their entire server infrastructure to the Cloud. Good ideas may see like good ideas, but sometimes people forget about something I call reality.

Finally, I think what you will see is some companies that will "lowball" the price of the cloud much like web hosting companies did the same. The result will be pathetic service. You get what you pay for. People will sour on the experience and the cloud will be much slower coming into fruitation than the service providers make it out to be.

The point you mentioned about infrastructure is a valid one. We also should consider the fact that cloud storage may be "cheap" now, but then when more people migrate to it and the networks become more strained, **** is going to hit the fan, especially if entire organisations' data is in the "cloud".

phoeneous

antielvis wrote: »

I think many of you need to take the stats you read with a grain of salt. Way back in the 90s (I was around then) IBM released study after study that online shopping was going to decimate the bricks and mortar retail world. I remember reading articles about how these specialists fear what would happen to shopping malls. They foresaw a day when your local mall would be closed down. No such thing happened.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/03/best-buy-to-close-stores-slash-jobs/

Brick and what?

tpatt100

phoeneous wrote: »

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/03/best-buy-to-close-stores-slash-jobs/

Brick and what?

Yeah I have diapers on a subscription with Amazon, I have Prime and just this morning I bought Minority Report on BluRay from Amazon. Before I bought all my dvds from Best Buy or Target.

petedude

cknapp78 wrote: »

My magic 8-ball says...Outlook not certain.

"Always cloudy, the future is."

Just had to add that. My luck, someone else already did.

RobertKaucher

tpatt100 wrote: »

Yeah I have diapers on a subscription with Amazon, I have Prime and just this morning I bought Minority Report on BluRay from Amazon. Before I bought all my dvds from Best Buy or Target.

There is a joke in the Geek Squad that they acquired Best Buy. But it's not that far from the truth if you really look at BBY's business strategy for the next decade, they know what is coming and are attempting to shift a service/online retail model as quickly as possible.

It's hard to see the future... I just hope that we get past 2025 with societies - forget physical stores.

petedude

tpatt100 wrote: »

Yeah I have diapers on a subscription with Amazon, I have Prime and just this morning I bought Minority Report on BluRay from Amazon. Before I bought all my dvds from Best Buy or Target.

You're in deeper than I am, but maybe not by much.

The whole online purchasing/distribution bit is partly why Best Buy is now closing stores and why you see very few mom/pop computer shops.

So what am I going to do if some massive disrupt hits the 'net? Drive 50 miles to the some distribution center to buy disk drives?

Asif Dasl

As far as I can see a lot of retail is f**ked altogether...

Over here 'Game' and game retail store has gone in to administration... most people buy their games online now.

All of the people I know who bought TV's within the last 3/4 years got them delivered from an online store after researching online and got a better price online... computers too, but not all...

I get ALL of my clothes online... Levi's are about €77 in Ireland, so I buy them on eBay and even with shipping from California - half way across the world they are half price...

I recently bought WiFi antennas on eBay from Hong Kong - €2 each delivered from half way across the world, a retail store in the center of Dublin would have cost me €20 + travel expenses... WTF... sure I had to wait a month but seriously for most things other than food... I can wait.

The day some Chinese online clothes store opens up - I can see me ordering clothes from there... I already buy loads of clothes from the States as it is because of the exchange rate and it gives me more choice... anything that doesn't ship outside the States, I use Bundlebox... most US clothes stores now ship outside America anyway...

I can see this trend catching on...

Also the margins on computers, TV's etc have mostly gone apart from Apple or something... Dell is not the power it used to be, HP was about to get rid of computer hardware division, Sony & Samsung trying to offload it's TV LCD businesses. Circuit City collapse was a big surprise to me, maybe that was the writing on the wall for these kinds of retail outlets?

I don't think clothes stores will disappear but there is a lot that will IMO...

tpatt100

I don't see clothing stores going away because some people like to touch / feel clothes. I bought shoes online but they were shoes that I have worn before so i know what I am getting. I think the big retail stores will suffer and we will end up going to nothing but Walmart.

Novalith478

tpatt100 wrote: »

I don't see clothing stores going away because some people like to touch / feel clothes. I bought shoes online but they were shoes that I have worn before so i know what I am getting. I think the big retail stores will suffer and we will end up going to nothing but Walmart.

Clothes will probably always be around. Especially women's clothes. Women like the act of going to a store and shopping, browsing, trying things on etc. Any boyfriend/husband on here will know what I am talking about xD

All joking aside, god help us if everything becomes like a Walmart. I hate Walmart with a passion.

tpatt100

Novalith478 wrote: »

Clothes will probably always be around. Especially women's clothes. Women like the act of going to a store and shopping, browsing, trying things on etc. Any boyfriend/husband on here will know what I am talking about xD

All joking aside, god help us if everything becomes like a Walmart. I hate Walmart with a passion.

Well we could end up with nothing but Buy 'N Large (Pixar).

Asif Dasl

Novalith478 wrote: »

Clothes will probably always be around. Especially women's clothes. Women like the act of going to a store and shopping, browsing, trying things on etc. Any boyfriend/husband on here will know what I am talking about xD

All joking aside, god help us if everything becomes like a Walmart. I hate Walmart with a passion.

Yeah I was going to say... Women's clothes tend to be in different sizes with different brands and stuff. For most of my stuff I'm a Medium in practically every brand. So ordering stuff is easy, and for the few where Medium is too small I make a mental note to order a Large the next time... Plus women love to shop so that ain't going to change!

Retail will always be about, cause people like to browse, touch & feel but I can see Best Buy and places like that being demonstation stores holding very little stock and using fewer people and maybe a lot smaller. People will always need something quick and in Ireland you pay a premium for that... maybe in future you will courier that instead

I just get the feeling something will change dramatically cause US Postal & Royal Mail etc. they all have big problems now that people don't send letters... maybe you could see FedEx retail distribution outlets or something... I don't know... the way things have been for the last 50 years or so seems to be changing with online stores...

Google Products is the first place I look for something specific... that's a big change to the way my parents shopped...

petedude

Outsourcing has been a looming threat to internal IT shops since at least the early 90s. In one sense, we're just seeing more of the same.

What really gets me sometimes is not as much the cloud, but. . . MSPs.

Managed Service Providers have a tendency to pop up in areas where there are lots of small companies, especially where the region isn't heavily tech-centric. Since small businesses can outsource their IT to MSPs, there are lots of jack-of-all-trades, guy-in-the-back-office IT system admin jobs that simply vanish. These outsourcing situations mean fewer options for people who are trying to get their foot in the door, or get their feet wet with different technologies-- especially in outlying suburbs where there's zilch for tech jobs.

Don't get me wrong-- I'm not anti-MSP. I worked for one for a while that I had wanted to get on board with for many years, with people I really enjoyed and/or respected. I am, however, a little wistful for those sys admin gigs of times past, and saddened that some tech-aspiring folks will miss out on those.