The State of Cloud Computing Shows It’s Still Growing & Viable

Earlier this summer, I was given a great opportunity to work with the incredible team from JESS3 on an awesome project for a major brand. In doing so, I was also “forced” to learn about a new area of the Internet that I normally would not have found myself accustomed to knowing – even though it was something I’ve been using for years (and so have you). What resulted from this was a highly engaging web video called The State of Cloud Computing.

Created and developed on behalf of Salesforce, The State of Cloud Computing was an amazing opportunity to really get involved in this phenomenon that consumers only vaguely know as “cloud computing”. For our purposes, the aim was to help create something that wasn’t too elementary, but also still was easy enough for anyone who watches the video would understand. To that end, the research that was conducted focused on the beginning of the Cloud movement and some major milestones that took place since its introduction in the 1960s.

So what is Cloud Computing? If you look at the definition supplied by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, it’s a “model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” Another way of possibly describing Cloud Computing is taking any computing ability and pushing it away from installed software that you might currently have (e.g. Microsoft Office, Windows operating systems, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Project, etc.) and have the data reside solely in virtual space known as the Internet (the “Cloud”).

For many businesses, they’re already using technology operating in the Cloud. Don’t believe me? Does your company use email to communicate with clients and partners? There’s the Cloud. So many things that are used in the Cloud will astound you – in fact, in an interview I had with the Altimeter Group’s Ray Wang, he said that it’s anything that you can use with your browser or needs the Internet – so Skype, Gmail, Facebook, Farmville,etc all reside in the Cloud.

Much can be said about Cloud Computing, including it’s adoption by non-businesses, including state and federal government and their agencies. But while we all tout that that the Cloud is great, we can’t run around with the belief that it’s not without any concerns. Whether it’s Intuit’s servers going down causing financial trouble for thousands of small businesses from using their service like Quicken or Gmail experiencing an outage leading to trouble for businesses who rely on the service as their main form of communication, it’s not perfect. BUT, the adoption and innovation of technology in Cloud Computing is growing nonetheless.

Some of the major players in Cloud Computing are many of the startups that we’re seeing here in Silicon Valley and also includes many big software companies like Salesforce, Microsoft and even Google. More investments each year are going towards building out the Cloud so it’s looking like a lot of businesses will be more trusting in this technology and start moving their data to a virtual network that will allow it to be accessible from anywhere.

Released last November, The State of Cloud Computing currently has received over 80,000 views on YouTube and for my part, I’m really proud of the work that I’ve done with the JESS3 team for Salesforce. Being able to tell a story about Cloud Computing in the form of a video infographic within three minutes was a true challenge and I’m honored that I got to work with the designers and producers of this video to come up with a really great strategic overview of the Cloud to share with Salesforce and its team, clients and partners.

You can check out The State of Cloud Computing now on YouTube or from the video’s website by clicking here.