February 2010 Archives

The perceived differences between a public and private cloud appear to be directly related to control, cost, security, service level and service priority. So, in context, the following questions need to be asked:

• Who (internal or cloud provider) controls the services and their underlying dependencies?
• Where the data resides (on premise or in cloud) in terms of security, privacy and business continuity (backup and disaster recovery)?
• How can corporate security enforce compliance and auditability?
• Are there service levels delivery "guarantees" to match corporate service level agreements?
• What is the elasticity (cost of on demand capacity) for peak and rapid growth demands?
• What is the level of priority of service when service issues are encountered?

Traditional smartphones - such as BlackBerry's - or "bypass phones" such as Google's Nexus One and Apple's iPhone, leverage the intelligence on the device, which is owned/controlled by the respective vendor Smartphones tightly integrate the user experience with services Google, Apple and others vendors own and funnel/control revenue streams away from the operators and carriers.