Wong, Doody, Crandall, Wiener’s latest Digital Minute newsletter says we’re experiencing the calm before the cloud computing storm.
Where Google sees devices as the gateway and the cloud as the destination where everything happens, Apple sees the cloud as a way to connect and unify its bundled software/hardware experience. It’s no surprise that the two companies approach the cloud differently, as they operate on different business models. Google sells advertising, while Apple sells devices.
Microsoft is the third major player in this battle, and it sells software, so it has the most to lose from the moves Google and Apple are making. As a result, it has created its own cloud-based service offering, Microsoft Office 365, which launches June 28. It will be a monthly subscription service with a tiered payment plan, and will reportedly offer desktop software, email, voicemail, instant messaging, and most of the other offerings supplied by its traditional office software bundle.
I already use Google Docs and Dropbox, but I’m intrigued by Apple’s iCloud announcement. How about you? Is your data in the cloud?