Cloudonomics: The Business Value of Cloud Computing, + Website

Everyware, Anywhere

When viewed from the perspective of global technology trends, the cloud is becoming even more important. Digitalized, informationalized offers are becoming more pervasive. Maribel Lopez, founder of Lopez Research and a Forbes blogger, observed that the intersection of mobility and the cloud change what we connect, how we connect, and how we transact business, and is changing how we develop, test, deploy, and use applications.46 There are 6 billion mobile “phones” now in use, part of a current total of 9 billion connected devices, and that total is likely to reach 24 billion within a decade, according to at least one estimate.47 Other estimates are even higher.

As BT (British Telecom) chief scientist J. P. Rangaswami said, “You need to start from the philosophical position that everything is the end point on a network—your television, even your doorbell.”48

This emerging era of ubiquitous, pervasive, invisible computing has been dubbed “Everyware” by author and futurist Adam Greenfield.49 In this new world, computing and connectivity become so ubiquitous, intelligent, and low cost that they descend below conscious awareness. Your dinner plate tells the refrigerator that you ate all of your broccoli, which in turn informs the grocery store that you will need more soon, which gives the farmers a heads up. Communications within the house may not need the cloud, but collecting data from the sensors will take advantage of the rapidly materializing era of global hyperconnectivity, ...