Jeanne Morain offers a great explanation of how the new paradigm shift both in and out of the cloud is more user centric around Universal Clients for the desktops. The monolithic era of tightly coupled OS, Applications and Data can no longer survive and thrive in today’s technology-dependent world.

Let us not forget Vista and why although many of us have either worked with or for large organizations that wasted significant man hours and investment planning to migrate – the actual adoption of the platform was delayed and/or rolled back. Why? Many cite application compatibility, usability, and impact to business continuity. ALL are factors for ease of use. Perhaps if the definition is more around the 4 C’s of universal clients (Client, Continuity, Compliance, Control) it may be less generic and more easily defined in terms of context, content, and user.

The 4 C’s defined (in or out of the cloud )- but can easily be applied here are

1. Client – Mobile, Ubiquitous, Easily Access Apps & Data that follow end user
2. Continuity – Enable business continuity and up time – provide disaster recovery, least impactful to end user and there business (reboots costs businesses millions in lost productivity)
3. Compliance – Adhere to key directives for regulatory (COBIT, SAS70, ISO), security, and business directives. Includes everything from patching, limiting execution, ownership.
4. Control – Systems need to be locked down for IT, Easily managed, accessed for range Admins (SME-Enterprise),Encrypted, and Flexible for end users to still to their job.

   We all know everything is relative and there are good points to be made in this thread – but let’s not loose sight that no two clouds will be exactly alike or even usage – what is required for an external cloud in Healthcare around medical billing may be different for Imaging, etc based on the context in which the user is trying to perform their function and the criticality of their role. If someome makes a mistake or are delayed in getting someone’s bill out that is a minor annoyance but the later could be life or death. Opera tickets are entertainment and although valid in the context in which presented – does not fully reflect the magnitude of how the cloud can help or significantly impact a business.