To The Cloud!!

so it's been the norm tech trend to cut the cords and compute via the airwaves

i mean come on, kids today are using three to four times more technology they we did at their age, that's a huge increase in such a short period of time and it's is only going to get wider at the rate technology makes leaps and bounds forward

but in this country where one of the biggest contributors to pushing innovation is the US Government (we practically owe our commercial airline industry to its award of an innovative contract with the Wright Brothers many moons ago) it's a sure sign that 'Cloud Computing' is the new state of the art and if you don't know you betta ask somebody

the news first of GSA taking its entire email client system to the cloud via Google created some huge waves in the IT industry but compared to other federal agencies GSA is small potatoes

enter the juggernaut USDA (US Department of Agriculture) with a workforce of over 120k strong announced recently that it's shifting its entire IT environment to Microsoft's Cloud Power

i for one as a Federal employee (who also understands the reasons why people are crying for a federal pay freeze but also think it's bogus when you really compare apples to apples the pay rates of Federal employees to their private sector equivalents you'll discover that Federal employees DO NOT make more in salary and are far more restricted if they choose to leave public service and land a better job within the private sector due to extensive ethics laws and regulations ... but that's another blog) and happy to see this major shift having worked within multiple Federal agencies and the gods know i know how much is spent to maintain multiple competing IT environments and the pieces needed to keep it all going on its legs

having a complete cloud environment may not cost less to maintain but overtime it gives the agency or company the ability to flex its IT muscles as the market demands or industry changes which would equate over time to less money needed

all that being said, how does any of this apply to a regular joe schmoe?

well i've taken it upon myself to look into it first hand but looking into totally free cloud'ish offerings from Microsoft such as it's Windows Live offerings to Google's Google Docs, Gmail, and now Google Voice (one number to RULE THEM ALL!!) offerings so if you didn't know it more and more people are running majority or pieces of their lives in the clouds

but are you?

i've been testing out the Microsoft's Live and Live Essentials to compare to my full time Google Gmail account and honestly, kinda digging the programs and features so far

what say you peoples?

o_O