Cloud Computing soon to become a subject of fierce debate

His rant was reported by the Guardian newspaper and a debate in the blogosphere ensued. Stallman argues that users will lose control of their programs, their data and their privacy.

Many others believe cloud, or utility, computing is the future. On Monday, software giant Microsoft Corp. finally announced Windows Azure, a development platform, so that it can join the ranks of companies like Amazon.com Inc. and Salesforce.com Inc. and offer Web-hosted software applications as a service.

The debate will surely continue over the pros and cons of cloud computing. But a book called "The Big Switch," published earlier this year, makes one of the most compelling arguments that accessing many of your computing capabilities via another provider is the wave of the future. Author Nicholas Carr's comparison of the history of electrical power to utility computing is fascinating and portends that one of the biggest shifts in computing is afoot.

"On the supply side, we are still a ways from knowing who the big losers and winners are," Carr said in a recent interview. "The biggest winners are companies like Google, Salesforce.com, and Amazon.com with its Web services ... and those companies that have no baggage from the old world and could set up from the start their business on the cloud."

Shift is happening, no point denying it! Come and listen to my talk at CloudCamp event in Brussels where Microsoft, Amazon, Quest, etc will be there to do their talk.

Let's co-create this Cloud together! and here's MarketWatch article.