The groundswell is building for cloud services like Microsoft’s Office 365. Even more so with the upcoming release of Office 2013 (now in customer preview as of 2 days ago) and how it completely interfaces into the all new Office 365 experience (that is fully cloud delivered), and into Windows 8 (due October 26 to a store near you).
A more pointed example is that QANTAS, Australia’s national airline, has now opted for a mass deployment of Office 365, as reported today by Delimiter.
Gone are the days of local installs of apps, and locally managed servers and services. It’s all streamed to you from the cloud now honey. This model spells the beginning of the end for pirated software – it’s a bit hard to pirate a cloud based streamed app !
The biggest issue we face here in Australia is the lack of true high speed broadband (bring on the NBN) and the outrageous cost of this broadband.
Services like Office 365, and cloud services in general, need an “always on” environment – but the cost of decent broadband in Australia limits greater uptake. And this high cost model for broadband has always been the case here in Australia. Even when I ran an ISP nearly 20 years ago, the model from the bandwidth suppliers was, and still is, charge as much as possible for every meg of data, regardless of what it actually costs to deliver the data.
This ethos stifled Keatings “Creative Nation“, which promoted the idea that the arts leads to economic prosperity, and continues to stifle overall internet, app, and cloud innovation and uptake here.
