How Cloud Became this Big

The mankind has constantly evolved ever since its existence. Our ancestors used to travel by a cart with continued efforts and manpower that cart has evolved into a Bugatti Veyron. And if the trend is to be continued, flying cars may not be a farfetched dream. This was an example of automotive engineering. The IT department has hurled its very own flag altogether. From simple micro-chips to uber fast core processors, IT has embarked upon a journey that was unimaginable a few decades ago.

Cloud Computing is one such technology, that has put the mankind on the crux of innovation. But not many know how the concept came into existence? Who were the pioneers that made cloud a reality?

Sowing of the Seed

In the sixties the great J.C.R. Licklider devised the concept of intergalactic computer network or the ARPANET. The basic idea behind it was to connect everyone in the world and make every program accessible to everyone from any site in the world. This concept was the direct predecessor to the internet. Later, the popular scientist John McCarthy proposed that the computational services should be provided as services.

Micro-Chips

The success of cloud has been based on the rise of internet to the prominence. First microchip was invented in 1950’s. These chips could only carry out basic calculations. IBM saw an opportunity in this sphere and exhaustively researched on the subject. Those researches bore fruit in 1959, when IBM came up with 1401 model. This model became the cornerstone of computing for the years that followed. In the 60s mouse and keyboard came into existence giving computer a better user interface.

In 70’s Intel developed its first microprocessor and wrote a program that sent message from one computer to the other. This would later be known as the e-mail. So next time you are using your Gmail or Yahoo mail, you know who to thank.

Bill gates and Paul Allen rolled out Microsoft in 1974 and two years later Steves founded Apple Computers and rolled out Apple II. From then on every year new innovations were made and computer was being transformed into what we have now.

A New Dawn

The ideas of two legends, Licklider and McCarthy could not be made into reality because of the technical limitations prevalent at the time. The major breakthrough in the field of cloud came when Salesforce and Google came into existence in1999. That event changed the face of computing forever. Both of these companies provided cloud based services, Google for direct consumers and Salesforce for businesses.

The end of 90’s was the best time to invest in internet based ventures. Cloud had the right platform to usher into world as high speed connectivity, multi-tenant architectures and worldwide operability of softwares came into existence. Salesforce grabbed this opportunity and started delivering business applications from site.

The Bubble Burst

The internet boom was such that everyone with an idea started offering services through the internet. These companies were backed by seemingly limitless capital and confidence in the respective venture. The idea was to suffer initial loss and after the service becomes famous, charge for it. Even Google and Amazon took a hit initially, but their investment was in other places altogether. But as they say never trust anything which seems to good, internet boom didn’t last much. The major players like that of Dell and Cisco started selling off their stocks in March 2000 and the bubble busted. The exact culprit for the burst is a mystery but is attributed to factors like Y2K, anti-monopoly ruling against Microsoft among others.

Rising from the Ashes

Amazon launched its cloud AWS in 2002 with a view to store data and allow multiple users the access to same kind of information. Then Facebook gave the cloud a personalized feel and revolutionizing the way people interacts and store their personal moments. With its constant innovation mantra, Facebook is still ruling social media market and its acquisition of Whatsapp will only fuel the trend.

Since then the cloud has seen a constant upward trajectory. Amazon has since launched Elastic compute cloud and Simple Storage Services, providing different services. Along with that came the pay-as-you go model which is the pillar of cloud pricing these days. Salesforce have also launched force.com providing PaaS. Google and Microsoft have also rolled out Drive and Azure respectively, indicating that the cloud bubble won’t be bursting anytime soon.

The cloud technology has seen many ups and downs, but the time has come that the only way for the cloud is up. The strides cloud has taken have been massive as shown by the stat that 3 in every 4 companies have some of their operations in the cloud. So if you are not virtualized, it’s time for you to think about it!

Julie Watson's profile picture

About Julie Watson

Julie is a dynamic professional with over 16 years of rich experience as a VDI and Application Hosting expert. At Ace Cloud Hosting, she humanizes disruptive and emerging remote working trends to help leaders discover new and better possibilities for digital transformation and innovation by using cloud solutions with an enterprise-class security approach. Beyond work, Julie is a passionate surfer.
On the weekend, you will find her hanging out with her family or surfing around the North Shore of Oahu.

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Comments (1)

  • User's profile picture Tracy Levesque says:

    Cloud Technology from the time of its existence has made a great impact on its counterparts like supercomputers, it has great potential.

    • User's profile picture Michelle says:

      I have been going back and forth for years now about how to handle my acuicntong on my own. I cannot justify paying someone, however I am a registered corp, not an llc, which does make the acuicntong question more complicated. As I work on a mac there are few options. I have been looking at gnucash, quickbooks and outright, but find that none fulfill all my needs. Granted gnucash I am not sure cannot so the job but I was intimated by the complexity of installing it on a mac. I would love some advice FYI, I work as a consultant in fashion but do not have any inventory, however I do take on freelancers. The icing on the cake would be something that helps at tax time filling more than just a simple 1040.Thanks for the help!

  • User's profile picture Sergej Muller says:

    The quality of this technology is supreme and will lead to some great innovations in the future.

  • User's profile picture Sam Brodie says:

    The ultimate destination of the technology is to capture every field on the globe and, it’s on a strong front at the moment.

  • User's profile picture Scott Reilly says:

    It marks the dawn of a new generation in the field of Cloud Technology.

  • User's profile picture Niall Kennedy says:

    It will narrow the bridge between thoughts and actions in the foreseeable future. Will also increase decision making.

  • User's profile picture Puneet Singh says:

    The main reason one could assume for the success of cloud technology is that it is the need of the hour. Conventional ways of storing data are too old nowadays.

  • User's profile picture Lavitra Singh says:

    The massive nature of cloud technology is what keeps it going for everyone.

  • User's profile picture Gunjan Srivastav says:

    True the technology is very costly but it brings much more to the table.

  • User's profile picture Ben Dunkle says:

    There are more positive reasons as to why people are backing the cloud technology.

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