Indeed, the emphasis is on more costly as we look at a new report on cloud computing from consulting powerhouse McKinsey & Co. (the occupational alma mater of new Small Business Administration head Karen G. Mills). Because precisely what the report finds is that cloud computing is more costly than is generally thought...for large companies. But there is a flip-side to this news. In the report's words (page 20, for those who've downloaded): "Cloud offerings are currently most attractive for small and medium-sized enterprises...and most customers of clouds are small businesses." You can take a look at the graph to see why.
Now, in case you were wondering, it is likely that cloud computing will get less cheap for large corporations too; or so, anyway, argues TechCrunch (which is how we found the report in the first place, incidentally). TechCrunch argues that innovation will lead to increased competition, which in turn will lead to price-cutting.
Still, however much innovation and price-cutting here will help large corporations, it's hard to conceive of how they wouldn't also help small ones. And it's also hard to conceive how cloud computing hasn't made it ten or one-hundred times easier to start your own business from scratch. Which is why we will continue to sing its praises as long as our fingers have the strength to type.
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