Enterprise Messaging Notes

As much as I respect most who post here and elsewhere around the Domino community, I've never really understood the continual buzz and apparent infatuation with the idea of "cloud computing".   Admittedly, as an in-house IT resource with what some might say are vested "job security" interests in keeping things in a private network with local data protection, local administration and control, things like this Not so much fun in this cloud article just seem to underscore the need to keep things private, and under the care, custody and control of someone or something with some internal accountability for security, business continuance, privacy, uptime, change control, and other things like that.

Whereas I get that "the cloud" may present great opportunities for SMB's to have quick capabilities they may not otherwise be positioned to provide to their own environments, this kind of thing with Sidekick and T-Mobile and Microsoft could well cripple an SMB, making the risk for smaller organizations even more alarming.  When those 2 large organizations, and Google for example has stated your data is not going to really be private, it still befuddles me that any organization of any size is willing to take those kinds of risks.

Talk is talk, marketing is marketing, and fads are fads, and for those of us still waiting for "thin clients" to replace the PC (for the 3rd or 4th time over the past 15 years), might we ought to know this sounds like another passing fad, at least in the way it is handled now, by providers like those mentioned above.