16th
McKinsey & Company released a report, “Clearing the Air on Cloud Computing,” yesterday that claims that large corporations could lose money through the adoption of cloud computing. The report paints cloud computing as over-hyped and maintains that cloud computing services like Amazon Web Services (AWS) overcharge large companies for a service the companies could do better on their own. The study also says that while cloud computing is optimal for small and medium-sized businesses, large companies will spend less if using traditional data centers. Virtualization is the optimal way to go, says McKinsey, and by implementing virtualization in-house, corporations can reduce costs when factoring in depreciation and tax write-offs. Virtualization, which McKinsey says can boost server utilization to 18% from 10%, lets you treat one machine like many, by carving the servers into many virtual engines, so that software can maximize power from one machine and add scalability. Not only is this cost-effective for companies, but cloud computing takes advantage of virtualization.
The report makes some thought-provoking points but neglects to address a few key trends that are occurring in cloud server services. Innovation is rapidly changing in the cloud. The space is still very much a work in progress and big cloud computing services, like AWS, Google, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft, are regularly coming out with different products. As these companies throw their hats into the “cloud computing ring,” AWS will face increased competition in the market and could cause prices to go down to fight for market share.
