I recently bought an iPad 2 and then last week my laptop died. I'm still debating on whether or not to get another laptop. I'm finding that I can use the iPad for most things and there are only a few (GLARING) exceptions that make me think that I might have to have a laptop or netbook, but I'm considering testing an Android tablet to see if that gives me what I need.
I know... what does an iPad and an Android tablet have to do with "the cloud"? Well, I'm beginning to think that I don't need local storage - that if I just put my frequently used documents in the cloud then I can access them on any device I happen to be using at the time - whether that's a computer, netbook, laptop, iPad or even smart phone.
My LOB software is already cloud based. I could easily move my accounting software to the cloud. Email and web services are already cloud. I've started testing Google Docs against Office 365. For now there is no specific iPad app for either one. The editor is much better on Office 365 and it saves in formats that are completely compatible with Microsoft Office. When using Office 365 on my iPad it tells me that it would perform better if I install silverlight, but the native Safari browser on an iPad is not compatible with silverlight. Even so - the interface works. It looks very much like my local version of Office 2010.
Google has integration with Blogger, picasso, and many other services, giving you a fairly robust environment. I don't think the word processor or spreadsheets can compare with Microsoft's offerings, but given time, I'm sure that will change, too.
Yep, it would be fairly easy to switch to mostly cloud services. Because I'm also an amateur photographer and video enthusiast, I can't go completely into the cloud just yet because of my need for massive fast storage, but the day is coming.
Now the hard part... as a computer consultant, how do I make money when I tell my customers they're better off not having their own server? I can help them make the transition, then what? Will I just go the way of the TV repair guy? There are significant changes happening in the computer world these days and I need to figure out how to take advantage of these changes.
