The Leading Cloud Computing Applications on the Web
"The web as a platform". That's the mantra you've been hearing a lot about, applied to cloud computing. The idea behind cloud computing is basically to take all the computer that you have in front of you and condense it down to an operating system running a web browser, with everything else coming through the web browser. No more software need be installed; if possible, no large data storage is even needed.
But like the semantic web and artificial intelligence, cloud computing is a goal that we always are progressing towards without closing in on it any time soon, at least for now. But we have a lot of progress to show for it! Here is a brief list of the applications and services in and around the web which we figured (by our scientific method of debating it over a lager) to be the best examples of what "cloud computing" is all about.
Notice that we will not be including things that represent grid/distributed computing or anything "Web 2.0" or expressly "social web". The cloud computing services we're picking here are ones that specifically replace something you normally do on your own computer with something that's now done "out there" in the cloud.
Service replaced: File servers
Before, when we wanted to download something, it was kept on one web-accessible file server or at best some "mirrors" of the original site's file archive. The problem was that if a lot of people go to download it at once, the server gets slammed and nobody gets it. BitTorrent solves this by making each recipient a file sharer: only a few users need to get the file from the original site, then the client takes over and uses the downloaded copy to provide for others who need it. This is one of the best examples of cloud computing filling a pressing need.
Service replaced: Telephone service
If Skype gets its way, in the future the only kind of connectivity you will need to pay for is Internet service; through it, you can do voice communication. Of course, the mobile platform is already a combined Internet/telephone service already, so Skype may get squeezed out. But it's very popular with the desktop/laptop set.
Service replaced: Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Mainly, the various services that Salesforce is looking to replace are the kinds of things your office would have done on the company's intranet: keeping databases that track customers, marketing and promotional tools, and other business needs. Like many cloud computing businesses, its lifeblood is third-party applications.
Image Editors
Service replaced: Desktop graphics editing (e.g. Photoshop, Gimp)
There's a wide choice of these out there. All of them allow you to upload an image, edit the image right in your web browser, and save the image to your own system or to an online image-sharing account. Most of them have the basic photo-processing features including scaling, cropping, rotating, file conversion, and filters. They also usually feature integration and support with online image-sharing services including Flickr and Picasa. Three of the most well-known and established ones are: Foto Flexer, Splash-Up, and Phixr.
Desktop Widgets
By widgets, we mean things like clocks, calendars, feed-readers, scheduling planners, calculators, chat programs, video games, and other minor programs. These are usually tied together into a web homepage for a user's account, which will contain all the apps in one place and sometimes be tied in with a social network as well. There's iGoogle, which we're already very familiar with, MobileMe, which is Apple's version of iGoogle but only intended for use with Apple hardware, and Facebook, which has extended its social network into a vast holding of integrated widgets.
Document Services
Service replaced: Office software
Editing test documents, spreadsheets, and presentations used to be the main point of owning a computer in the office. It still is, but it's rapidly becoming a cloud computing poster child. These are the "Microsoft Office killers". When all office document editing is done in the cloud, the days of proprietary licensing, locked-in formats, incompatible document versions, software bugs and vulnerabilities, and highly expensive office suite prices will - hopefully! - be a thing of the past. Two worth mentioning: Google Docs, which is Google's own office productivity suite, and Adobe's Acrobat.com, which is only for editing text documents in various formats.
Service replaced: Bookmarking
There's other social bookmarking services out there, of course; but Delicious beat everybody to market and was also one of the first recognized social websites out there.
Service replaced: The whole Operating System (OS)! (sort of)
"Ha ha ha! Somebody thinks they can build a whole operating system inside of a web browser!" Well, who's laughing now? It's true that it's impossible to completely replace your computer's operating system with something in your web browser - because your system needs an operating system for the web browser to run on! But EyeOS is specifically designed to be a full OS desktop in a web browser, and has so far come closer than anything else to achieving that goal. It's also the most mature and the best at cross-platform support; give it a try!
Filed Under: Mobile Computing • Mobile Internet • News in Technology • Product Reviews • The Internetz
