From the Computer Utility to Cloud Computing - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 16

O'Sullivan, who went on to start a less than successful irm selling ile
storage and video-on-demand to individual customers. It was just too
early for this cloud to rain dollars, even on innovators with foresight. The
genuine growth of the cloud awaited the expansion in computer processing
power and in telecommunications networks, as well as a general economic
recovery following the dot-com collapse of the early 2000s. It was not
until 2006 that the term cloud computing came into more general use as
companies, led by Google, Dell, and Amazon, started using the term to
describe a new system for accessing iles, software, and computer power
over the Internet instead of from a computer's own hard drive or some
other portable storage mechanism (Regalado 2011).
Defining Cloud Computing
There are those who believe that the irst use of the term in the twenty-
irst century was by Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, when he described the
cloud at an August 9, 2006, industry conference: “What's interesting
[now] is that there is an emergent new model. I don't think people have
really understood how big this opportunity really is. It starts with the
premise that the data services and architecture should be on servers. We
call it cloud computing—they should be in a 'cloud somewhere.'” The PC
maker Dell saw marketing value in the term, and in 2008 the company
tried to secure a trademark for “cloud computing.” That attempt, which
upset many in the industry, ultimately failed. As a result, anyone was
free to use the term and many companies decided that the cloud was a
great way to capture the next stage in the development of online services
(Regalado 2011).
There is no generally accepted deinition of cloud computing. Indeed,
one overview suggests that twenty-ive cloud pundits would likely deine
it in twenty-ive different ways (McFedries 2012). An entrepreneur who
teaches programmers how to use the cloud describes it as “a metaphor for
the Internet. It's a rebranding of the Internet. That is why there is a raging
debate. By virtue of being a metaphor, it's open to different interpreta-
tions.” But the debate continues because “it's worth money” (Regalado
2011). Most cloud analysts do not equate the Internet with cloud comput-
ing. Although cloud systems use the network of networks we know as the