davidjewlian

…is not just the name of a Weird Al song.

Time for me to geek out

It may come as a shock with the paltry offerings of this blog, but I work in the world of advertising. That’s right, I’m “the man” that we all try so hard to fight against. Believe me, I’m disgusted as well. But I find it intellectually stimulating, and at times simply exhausting, so it’s better than flipping burgers. No offense to all you burger-flippers. Especially you, Bobby Flay.

The first client I worked on, all the way back in July, was an information technology client, which is when I got interested in all these doohickies that entice people into sitting in front of an LCD (or, god forbid, a CRT) screen for hours upon hours upon hours. We talked about ERP and CRM, SaaS and cloud computing, database types and middleware technology. All in all, things I know nothing about.

And one of those terms brings me to the crash. Oh yes, “the crash.” I’m not talking stock markets, it depresses me far too much when the DOW is close to 7,000 points. I’m talking about the Gmail crash that’s been making the news rounds yesterday. Everyone’s a-twitter about it. And the term that it connects back to is “cloud computing.”

This Fox News article states it as such, “The outage exposed the underlying vulnerability of ‘cloud’ computing, in which applications and data are accessed by users on the Internet instead of their own hard drives.” And this article employed the headline: “Does Gmail’s Crash Forecast ‘Dark Cloud Computing’?”

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is exactly what the Fox News article defined it as: “applications and data accessed by users on the Internet instead of their own hard drives.” Think things like Google Docs, Windows Live, and of course, the hero of the hour, Gmail.

How do people feel about it?

It has had mixed reviews in the past. Some people herald it as the harbinger of a new digital age where hard drives become obsolete and you can access anything, anywhere, at any time. It speaks volumes that I can get my Gmail on my BlackBerry, at work, at home, and an Internet cafe. That I could conduct an entire business meeting using shared documents on PowerPoint with nobody being in the same room, or even the same time zone. And the fact that I can have any number of people simultaneously editing a document that is on none of their computer without emailing anything is simply fascinating.

However, other people, such as Larry Ellison, CEO of software giant Oracle, has been known to say it is “complete gibberish.” Perhaps he forgot  that he has made many millions of dollars in supporting its use.

My bias is probably evident, but I think it’s the complete opposite of “gibberish.” The fact that we can now do all that I referenced above is completely amazing. That I can get my email anywhere, edit my documents anywhere, and share them with anyone is what this new open-source society is about. Granted, it’s also a little “1984″ in that a handful of organizations head up these applications I use, but that’s a trust issue that seems to be more prevalent among those who were led through Nixonian times, rather than those who grew up in the dot.com bust and take these risks as a given of life.

Though, I think there’s also something to be said about locally storing information, especially when looked at in the light of my apartment’s sometimes faulty Internet. I don’t want to be restricted from working on some documents because I can’t access Google Docs in a world without Internet access. And there aren’t nearly enough cyber cafes in the city of New York to accomodate these infrequent inconveniences. Which is probably why I’m not a heavy Google Docs user, and why I’m sort of glad I have a BlackBerry to access my Gmail at all times.

Should we be worried about this Gmail fluke?

I’m thinking probably  not. It’s like saying a plane crashed so I’ll never fly again. That a boat crashed so now I’m afraid of water. That I stubbed my toe once on the piano so, heck, let’s just throw that piano out. Running from the problem doesn’t solve anything because, let’s face it, the other 364 days of the past year have been basically worry-free from Gmail. Why would your software solutions be any different?

DS