Mile-High View of the 'Cloud'

By: Jim Rosenberg In some ways, the embrace of cloud computing represents a "trend back to a centralized system" that recalls early proprietary publishing systems, says Eric Wolferman. "In a Citrix Systems environment, users access applications that reside on central servers that might be anywhere.

"Much like the mainframe systems of the past, workers use simple terminals ? referred to as thin clients ? to access applications and store data," says the editor and publisher of Rocky Mountain TechLine, a monthly magazine launched eight months ago for Colorado's IT professionals by the former Denver Newspaper Agency technology VP. "I think you're going to see more and more of the Citrix-like environment."

The Citrix route gives IT full control of "what applications are accessible on the remote server. Users see the same display on the screen as they would if they were using the application on their own PC," says Wolferman, who before moving to Denver was an executive at System Integrators Inc., the Newspaper Association of America and the Gannett Co. It is attractive because it can be accessed by inexpensive terminal-like hardware, and it works fine for certain staffers performing only certain tasks. "It's much easier to maintain applications that live on a single, central server," he adds.

Cloud computing's goal is to reduce costs, Wolferman notes. But operating the thinnest of clients probably won't work for journalists, who need many programs' features and tools. For strictly browser-based applications, "can SaaS deliver all those kinds of tools?" he asks. Doing so, he adds, may create "a hefty environment." But without terminal-like hardware, prices for PCs or Macs are added back into system cost.

"I think it can work," but publishers will be "giving up control" of the technology, he says. "But that's not a reason not to do it." Publishers may benefit from vendors with more immediate control of their systems.

While acknowledging that even server-side computing becomes a low-priced commodity, Wolferman asks, "What's to say the price of that technology isn't going to go up tremendously?" When the supplier has your system, after all, it has leverage. The answer, he says, probably will be competition ? something cloud computing and SaaS may intensify. Precisely because publishers would not buy and possess systems ? remember, they're basically renting software and hardware ? they could change suppliers when the agreements expire.