Mobile cloud computing is a booming phenomenon: Juniper reseach predicts the market for mobile cloud apps to reach $9.5 billion by 2014. As smartphones have become increasingly powerful and networks funnel data at higher rates, cloud computing has moved from the sky and into the hands of users. From data backup and storage to productivity, many common tasks can now be performed in the clouds, with the handset functioning essentially as a data and input portal. While cloud computing is gaining ground in the wired world, it is especially useful—and sometimes critical—for the mobile platform because handheld devices have significantly less hardwired storage space for native applications; space that disappears quickly and can negatively impact the performance of the mobile device.
My Android phone, for instance, came
with a Gmail app that functioned well
for the first couple of weeks. But as
large amounts of email started flowing
cloud computing has moved from the sky and into the hands of users.
according to John Gantz and David
Reinsel, authors of the IDC report
announcing the figure. By 2020, the
Digital Universe is projected to be 44
times larger than it was in 2009. All of
that data requires storage and
increasingly, people are turning to the
cloud to provide it.
in, it bloated to a 40mb resource hog
and all but froze my handset. (Note:
Android 2.2 allows for the system to
mount applications from an SD Card,
which ameliorates some of these
issues.) Now I just access Gmail in the
clouds through my browser—problem
solved. What other options exist for
mobile cloud computing, and what’s in
store for the future?
Clouds Thick with Data
In 2010, the Digital Universe, that is all
of the digital data created on the
planet, reached 1.2 zettabytes, or 1.2
trillion terabytes. That’s enough data
to fill “a stack of DVDs reaching from
the earth to the moon and
back,” (roughly 480,000 miles)
Services such as Dropbox, Windows Live SkyDrive, and Google Docs are increasingly popular, and often free, options for both creating and storing data in the cloud that can be accessed anywhere in the world through a web browser. Most consumer-level cloud storage services offer a minimum of 1 gigabyte of storage, with the ability to add more storage for a fee. It is now possible to store your entire digital life on someone else’s computers, and the promise of being able to access gigabytes or even terabytes worth of personal data through a phone is obviously enticing, but the true beauty of the mobile cloud lies in the small things that cloud storage can offer.
Pipeline Publishing, Volume 7, Issue 9
