“THEY call it cloud software (emphasis mine), and brother, those clouds are gathering fast.”

D. Frith Software clouds have silver lining

When I first read this article in The Australian paper a week ago, I was intrigued by the terminology Frith chose to name web applications. Cloud software? It sounded like a mouthful. And I wondered about whom (they) Frith was referring to.

Anyway I started googling “cloud software”, and then I found a news item from The New York Times Software via the Internet: Microsoft in ‘Cloud’ Computing.

‘Cloud’ computing is a practice where a company releases free software to connect its operating system to web applications. And the company in the spotlight is Microsoft. After years of controlling market share of the operating systems and browser market, Microsoft has adopted this strategy, it seems, to take on the increasingly prolific web applications that are popping all over the web.

Even search giant Google has already launched Google Docs, an online service which allows you to create text documents and spreadsheets and they are stored online. It allows for online collaboration among students, colleagues, etc. You also have the option of downloading them to your local computer. According to Frith, Adobe is also muscling in with Buzzword, a web app similar to Google Docs. According to its website, “Buzzword, the first real word processor for the web, is a breakthrough in collaborative authoring for documents that matter.”

Such web applications could potentially cripple Microsoft long dominant monopoly of the desktop market and its Office suite of applications.

There are so many types of web applications to meet differents needs and demands. For years I have been contemplating cataloguing our collection of books at home. This is one instance of procrastination that I am happy to admit was worth the delay.

Now I am spoilt for choice. In the early stages, I tried listbooks.net. Then I tried a couple more. At that stage, I was already raving and marvelling about such online cataloguing and social networking book review sites to my librarian friends. The web apps are free (mostly( and they make the process of cataloguing so much quicker and easier. Then the serendipity of checking out who else owns similar books or mulling over book reviews and other comments makes such sites useful, informative and user-friendly. More importantly it delivers the control into the hands of each of us. Brilliant! I settled on using LibraryThing.com. In part, the decision was sealed when I saw that I could purchase a barcode scanner so the job of cataloguing our home collection will get done a lot, lot quicker. For a fee of US$25, I acquired lifetime membership and can maintain an unlimited collection. (Note 19 Oct 2007: There’s also WorldCat…)

I use Google Docs on ocassions and I am reasonably happy with Google calendar as my online diary which I can also share with others, if I choose to.

Ok, I digress. Anyway back to the clouds… Microsoft’s release of Windows live is targeted to capture its share of the Web 2.0 user driven space. It has a very similar feel to google. See for yourself.

I still think the term ‘cloud software’ is unwieldy. I can live with ‘cloud’ computing or even rich internet applications. I vote one for good old web app! Let me sleep over the cloud metaphor.

P.S. I googled “cloud computing” and came across this article by Donna Bogatin dated 23 Aug 2006. In Google CEO’s new paradigm: ‘cloud computing and advertising go hand-in-hand’, she points to the “beginnings” of the clouds assumption.

She quotes Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, who spoke at a 2006 Search Engine Strategies Conference:

“It starts with the premise that the data services and architecture should be on servers. We call it cloud computing – they should be in a ‘cloud’ somewhere. And that if you have the right kind of browser or the right kind of access, it doesn’t matter whether you have a PC or a Mac or a mobile phone or a BlackBerry or what have you – or new devices still to be developed – you can get access to the cloud…”

Even Amazon has its eye on cloud computing with its foray into virtual servers service.

And Wired’s take on the clouds….

The desktop is dead. Welcome to the Internet cloud, where massive facilities across the globe will store all the data you’ll ever use.

Wired’s The Information Factories

I can now add a name to they.