GeekPAK

If you haven’t read the last article we posted on cloud computing, in a nutshell we advised to do so cautiously, to consider who controls your data, consider the impact on your brand and be sure to have a backup plan for mission critical data.

In the last few days several events and articles have served to reinforce our concerns with cloud computing. The biggest event being Yahoo’s cancellation of the cloud bookmark site Delicious. Sure, it’s just your bookmarks, but if you’ve been using this site for a while, it’s a real hit on your productivity. Now what do I do with years of bookmarks? How much time will it take to move them somewhere else? Now, what if it was mission critical data in something like Google Docs.

But don’t take our word for it, take a look at what experts like Richard Stallman and Daring Fireball have to say:

Charles Arthur for The Guardian Writes

But Stallman is unimpressed. “I think that marketers like “cloud computing” because it is devoid of substantive meaning. The term’s meaning is not substance, it’s an attitude: ‘Let any Tom, Dick and Harry hold your data, let any Tom, Dick and Harry do your computing for you (and control it).’ Perhaps the term ‘careless computing’ would suit it better.”

He sees a creeping problem: “I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there’s a sucker born every minute. The US government may try to encourage people to place their data where the US government can seize it without showing them a search warrant, rather than in their own property. However, as long as enough of us continue keeping our data under our own control, we can still do so. And we had better do so, or the option may disappear.”


At the end of the day, you must control your message, you must control your brand, you must control your data. If you can do that in the cloud and save money, it makes sense. But don’t think you can, don’t believe you can, know you are. At the very least, consider the issues and have a backup plan in place should the next big dissolution of a cloud app affect the core of your business.