Products & Services

Cloud computing debate: Netbooks, trust and the N97

By Charlie on 09 February 2009

ESPOO, Finland – I was at the DLD Conference recently where the big theme was Cloud Computing. To me, Cloud Computing promises a time where always-connected mobile devices are communicating back and forth with services in the Cloud. On one side, that allows me to keep on top of the various data streams I am receiving, but also allowing me to feed back info to streams that do their thing “up there” in the Cloud. On the other side, the mobile device becomes an interaction tool for what I keep in the Cloud, such that I can pick and choose my device, as needed, and fill it with the spirit of the Cloud.

Read on for more thoughts on this subject.

Netbooks
Jonathan Greene found a good video discussing netbooks. What’s interesting to me (and which Jonathan points out) is that the original intentions for netbooks are not looking like what folks are using them for. And I like that, since street uses are usually more interesting and more innovative.

While Jonathan has his sharp mobile eyes on power issues and extended use in mobile situations, I myself, as you can tell from my opening, am more interested in the Cloud aspect (I guess I have no faith in long battery lives in relatively larger mobile computers, do you?).

Trust the Cloud
Of course, if we put everything up in the Cloud, what guarantee do we have that it’ll always be there? Sarah Perez, from Read Write Web, has a insightful article on trusting the Cloud. She points out that popular services such as Google Notes, Jaiku, and Pownce, all gave up the ghost, just like that.

I remember discussions here at Nokia, years ago, that wondered what it would take to build trust in the Cloud. In the end, it would have to have the trust level of a bank. Who can assure that level of trust, especially when everything is free?

Excting or fearful or what
I will continue to point out netbooks and Cloud computing over the year. They are quite related to our mobile computers, such as the N97, and our services, such as Files on Ovi, Ovi Sync (in which I had a heavy hand), and even Share on Ovi (very personal objects).

An exercise for you: take a look at where your things are and where you do things. What is the split between you phone, our PC, and a server out in the Cloud? What does it reveal? Where do you think it is trending?

I’m curious to know.

Image from Jolicloud

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Matt M. Says:
February 10th, 2009 at 10:00 pm

Eh, but nothing is free. All those big powerful servers that Google et al are setting up to provide the cloud, someone has to pay for those. At that someone is us. We’re giving up something in terms of privacy, allowing our data to be mined and eventually to be sold to advertisers or back to us. People need to get comfortable with that, eventually. Or, they need to be prepared to pay for that higher level of service. Alternatively, is the cloud just a stepping stone of sorts? If broadband (wired and wireless) was fast enough that remote desktop-y technologies allowed us to make use of our own personal commoditized storage, would it render the cloud moot? In which case for the things we REALLY need to do on the cloud, like computation intensive tasks, semantic matching, stuff like that, could be sold at a reasonable rate, much like a power grid. Or maybe neural networks allow us to use a semi-trusted provide we already pay for, like our ISP, to deploy our own cloud nanobots out onto the grid to work on our behalf, but controlled by and reporting back into our personal devices/PC.

Alan Says:
June 2nd, 2009 at 9:33 am

Netbooks I think are most interesting when they come with built in cellular connectivity and are sold even more cheaply with a network contract. A small convergence of Maemo/Ubuntu/Android could potentially bring keep opportunities open for Nokia in that area rather than letting them slip away to Microsoft.