The problem is, most of the people they want to market those services to only have a vague notion of what "the cloud" means.
"It's not just consumers and lay people who struggle with the cloud, it's experienced IT people who struggle with it," says Gartner analyst David Smith. "The whole idea from a consumer perspective is it's supposed to be a magical cloud in the sky."
There's a huge digital disconnect. Only 40% of Americans understand such cloud services as Google Docs for documents, according to a report from market researcher Ipsos OTX MediaCT. Even fewer 9% actually use such services, according to the survey of 1,000 U.S. respondents.
Stakes are high for technology companies to define the consumer cloud. The winner gets the keys to the digital media kingdom. Forrester Research forecasts the U.S. market for personal cloud services will hit $12 billion and 196 million consumers by 2016.
For tech companies to reap benefits, they'll have to answer a nagging consumer question: What is the cloud?
In a way, the cloud is as old and simple as the Internet itself. The cloud is really just about accessing storage or software remotely from a computer via the Internet. It's a modern twist on an old concept of time sharing on giant mainframe computers dating back to the '60s, industry experts say.
Think of TurboTax online, the Internet-based tax preparation service from Intuit. Log on. Crunch numbers. File from TurboTax. That's a cloud service.
Or easier yet, consider uploading images on the photo-sharing sites from Google's Picasa or Yahoo's Flickr. "In some ways, consumers have been using the cloud for a long time. There's a...
Source: http://www.mobile-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=79085
electronic gadget news electronic gadgets electronic gadgets for men electronic gadgets for the evil genius electronic gadgets for the evil genius 28 build-it-yourself
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন