The emergence of the Cloud is perhaps the biggest tech related news of the 2010s. Even though the technology seems pretty straight forward to most of us, there is more to it than meets that eye. In terms of our digital lives, cloud-based storage and services really have become more integrated than anyone could have imagined before. Today, the Cloud is not just a web-based storage service; it is more of a shared platform where a user-defined group can access shared files instead of the traditional method of having to email documents back and forth. So how would the Cloud change the technological game as we know it? We investigate.
Businesses would drive the future development of the Cloud
The first fact about the Cloud that consumers need to understand is that its development is driven by businesses. Unlike the development of other services on the internet, the development of the Cloud will be driven by businesses and for businesses. Companies offering cloud services would continue to explore new avenues to monetize these services. Just like the social networking platform where sites offer a large portion of their functionality free to all users while reserving a few “premium” services to paying customers, we would see the Cloud being developed along these lines. Just like social media marketing at the moment, the services of the Cloud would become indispensable for both small as well as large businesses. The competition for this directly paying market could lead to some really interesting innovations within Cloud services.
Convergence of business and personal lives
There was a time when only high flying corporate professionals used cellphones and smartphones. And we all know how these devices have revolutionized people’s personal lives hence. The Cloud too might have a similar effect blurring the lines between business and personal lives. Industry experts see the business-specific services being used by professionals to share more information with their personal groups and we could very well see the Cloud emerge as a whole new kind of social network platform in the future.
Cross platform communication
At the moment, cloud service providers and social media platforms are busy protecting their respective turfs by curbing cross-platform operability. However, as Cloud usage gains more reviews, we might see social media networks relaxing their API restrictions and allowing for greater operability between different platforms. Interestingly enough, this could lead one or more tech players trying to assert their dominance onto technology standards while hoping to be the global standard. Nevertheless, same factors might also lead to the evolution of a completely new set of standards that caters to different consumers needs.
The Cloud could rewrite everything we know about the internet
While most people now see the Cloud as just another data storage option, the technology could change everything we know about the Internet so far. Paired with smart electronics, the Cloud may help create smaller consumer groups that replace global communities that we have today.
