From the Computer Utility to Cloud Computing - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 66

to control practically all key nodes in the networks that produce, store,
process, and distribute services to individual and organizational customers.
Moreover, Terremark gives Verizon a signiicant international presence,
something that the company has lacked, particularly in Latin America.
It is uncertain whether Verizon can make this strategy work. Many com-
panies, with AOL Time-Warner the most celebrated, have run aground
with “can't miss” convergence deals. The outcome will go a long way to
determining whether Verizon can join the leaders in the cloud-based com-
munications industry. Complicating matters for Verizon is the expansion
of competitive pressures that threaten its comfortable duopoly with AT&T
in the United States. The acquisitions of Sprint and of Clearwire have
made SoftBank, in the words of one analyst, “a better-funded number
three with the spectrum to launch low-priced wireless data products.”
Moreover, the T-Mobile-Metro PCS merger created a fourth big player
in the U.S. market and the ability of the spectrum-rich Dish Network
promises to further disrupt the comfortable control of the market that
Verizon has enjoyed ( Globe Investor 2012; Taylor 2013b).
The U.S. Government: Trusting the Cloud
and Commercial Providers
Not all cloud computing is controlled by private organizations. But it is
interesting to observe the extent to which the U.S. government depends
on the private sector for its cloud computing needs, including relationships
based on no-bid, sole-supplier contracts with the largest cloud providers.
This is signiicant for several reasons, not the least of which is the amount
of money involved. According to one report, the government spends $80
billion annually on information technology and plans to move about 25
percent of its IT budget to the cloud. An example of the movement to
cloud services provided on a single-source, no-bid basis is the Naval Sup-
ply Systems Command's plan to use Amazon Web Services to store and
distribute digital photography and video. The Navy's argument is that
AWS offers a single, integrated package that is more reliable and less prone
to attack than other cloud services (Foley 2012). Furthermore, NASA,
which helped to develop OpenStack, the open source standard that IBM
uses for its cloud, also contracted with AWS (Thibodeau 2013). Even the