Mobile Monday Panel at MAC in Hong Kong
Posted on: November 22, 2010 – Filed under: Global
HONG KONG–In a muggy, overcast and polluted city like Hong Kong, it seemed somewhat apropos to gather together thought leaders from the mobile industry for a discussion on mobile computing and the cloud. That fluffy, shape shifting, overshadowing “cloud,” which has managed to escape proper definition for a couple of years already and which is becoming ever more amorphous as it floats onto the mobile horizon.
“The cloud is the driver of the app economy,” declared one speaker, presenting a rather complex slide to better illustrate his point. Meanwhile, Cat Purvis, partner at consulting firm Exicon, preferred to describe the mysterious mist as Software as a Service (SaaS), while Mike White of Locatrix communication preferred to call it “some sort of resource available over a network.”
“It’s actually a utility that is ‘pay-as-you-go,’” mused Per Dalberg, CEO of the Asia Cloud Computing association, while Navteq’s APAC partner relation manager opted for a foggy “plug and play” description.
A refreshingly honest and easy to grasp definition actually came from Caroline Lewko, who called the cloud “somebody else controlling your data.” The point was a controversial one in the room, but Lewko defended her position, explaining: “I hate having other people control my data and my access to it.”
The issue is not just control of data, but control of sensitive data, a term whose definition seems almost as blurry as that of the cloud itself. “I mean, what exactly is defined as sensitive data these days?” asked Dalberg. “After all, Google is so ubiquitous and controls so much of our data, be it pictures, e-mails or web history, that could become a huge issue.” Full article via RCR Wireless.