Elder,
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and for the newbies

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The cloud: - that which does not reside on your hard disk or even on the server on second floor. Its that application out there somewhere - you cannot really know where it is physically.

What Surealligator alludes to is good old Web 2.0 (the state of play when content starts being user driven - e..g this forum, blogs, comments on nation.co.ke, uploading files to YouTube, Creating your own content on Facebook, blogs, etc.

@Njunge - yes - the cloud could hurt Microsoft unless it evolves to become a player.

Some examples of traditional apps and those being offered as a "cloud" service for free....

Outlook/Lotus Email .....yahoo, gmail, etc
MS Word - Google Docs

Google wants to evolve its browser into an OS - such that you can buy any machine with not operating system and simply use chrome for every thing - to create docs, access email, access all manner of cloud apps, etc etc....

And Google is not just dominating the space held by Windows XP/etc....but now the operating system on handsets....Android. most device manufacturers are releasing android handsets - again this is because the apps for this op sys are increasing (and will soon overtake apple's i-phone OS)

people, i have heard all this before and i would surely want you to clarify some things before you even dump some of your predictions here.
1) cloud computing is here, but it is not a replacement of the desktop applications we run. Google runs Google Docs free on the internet but people still prefer to use good old office. Cloud computing will only go places if big players like Microsoft moves it.
2) Apple is worth more on the stock exchange than Microsoft that does not mean it makes more money. Apple's business is vastly different than Microsoft's, with most of the company's income coming from consumer hardware products, supported by growing sales of music and software. Microsoft makes the majority of its revenues from licensing deals with PC makers and corporations (market segments where Apple is either weak or doesn't even seek to enter) and, conversely, has repeatedly failed to find much success in the competitive consumer markets Apple has done so well in over the past several years
3)Google will never dominate the OS market since they think they know what the user wants, they don't ask them. Chromimum will fail like Buzz (supposed to compete with facebook and twitter did), google Wave, Orkut e.t.c.


now comes...Statistics.
Which is the most popular Browser? - did I hear Firefox? Wrong. Internet Explorer (although i still use Chrome in 3rd place)
http://marketshare.hitsl...rket-share.aspx?qprid=0

What is the most popular OS? - Windows XP (like google is even a threat)
http://marketshare.hitsl...rket-share.aspx?qprid=8
Considering Macs are only 5% of the market but people sing their praises like they are divine.

on Android, do you know no single Andorid phone beats the Iphone and Nokia is still ahead of the pack in the smartphones business.

My point....nothing changes immediately (only for geeks), we are doing cloud computing apps now but it will be a while before users see the advantage to running an app on the internet and they have I7 processors and tonnes of memory used to run only browser.

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