Demystifying cloud computing for consumers - USA Today ~ Computers Knowledge Article

Apple and Google are each rolling the dice on competing visions of cloud-based media, placing high-stakes bets on digital delivery of entertainment at a time when confusion runs high for such services.

Darr Beiser and Kris Kinkade, USA TODAY

The problem is, most of the people they want to market those services to only have a vague notion of what "the cloud" means.

"It's not just consumers and lay people who struggle with the cloud, it's experienced IT people who struggle with it," says Gartner analyst David Smith. "The whole idea from a consumer perspective is … it's supposed to be a magical cloud in the sky."

There's a huge digital disconnect. Only 40% of Americans understand such cloud services as Google Docs for documents, according to a report from market researcher Ipsos OTX MediaCT. Even fewer — 9% — actually use such services, according to the survey of 1,000 U.S. respondents.

Stakes are high for technology companies to define the consumer cloud. The winner gets the keys to the digital media kingdom. Forrester Research forecasts the U.S. market for personal cloud services will hit $12 billion and 196 million consumers by 2016.

For tech companies to reap benefits, they'll have to answer a nagging consumer question: What is the cloud?

In a way, the cloud is as old and simple as the Internet itself. The cloud is really just about accessing storage or software remotely from a computer via the Internet. It's a modern twist on an old concept of timesharing on giant mainframe computers dating back to the '60s, industry experts say.

Think of TurboTax online, the Internet-based tax preparation service from Intuit. Log on. Crunch numbers. File from TurboTax. That's a cloud service.

Or easier yet, consider uploading images on the photo-sharing sites from Google's Picasa or Yahoo's Flickr. "In some ways, consumers have been using the cloud for a long time. There's a million online photo galleries where you've been leveraging a Web-based cloud service," says IDC analyst Danielle Levitas.

Truth be told, the consumer cloud is simple. It's the many places we go on the Internet to access such things as Google's Gmail and Docs. That type of Web-based access is far different from using e-mail software such as Microsoft Outlook, installed on a PC, and Microsoft Word, which saves to a computer's hard drive.

The difference with Google is that you use its free online software and store your documents in the search giant's cloud. That's what keeps the brass at Microsoft up late at night, knowing that Google has given away online access to Docs, Calendar and Gmail — all software applications that mimic Microsoft's and is accessed over the Internet in the cloud.

Even Facebook is a cloud company. All those photos and comments that are uploaded via smartphone or computer are nestled in its cloud, or armies of server storage. To the user, it's just a visit to a popular website. But behind the scenes, your Internet activities are shuttled to massive data centers. Nothing is stored or lives on a person's PC or smartphone.

Think about those eggplants you recently harvested on FarmVille, the game from Zynga that operates on Facebook. Nothing about that game play lives on your PC. Your crops, your coins — it's all stored somewhere else: the cloud.

Cloud marketers

While consumers may unknowingly use a handful of cloud-based services, their concerns over privacy and security run high. The report from Ipsos said nearly 40% of Americans feel that saving to the cloud is not as secure or private as saving to a hard drive.

Apple, Google and Amazon have plenty of boilerplate security promises about their cloud services.

But that doesn't stop people from worrying about lost documents or privacy breaches that could nab credit card numbers on something as widely misunderstood as the cloud. Those concerns are only made worse by recent breaches of Amazon that left companies that rely on its cloud offline.

On the flipside, experts point out that there are risks to storing music, photos and other data on a laptop or PC. Devices are vulnerable to theft, loss or unrecoverable data damage.

"With the cloud, if your system does fry, there are copies out there," says Levitas.

The latest iterations of consumer cloud services promise to shuttle and store digital media for Apple, Google and Amazon. The cloud services come as use of smartphones and tablet computers is on the rise and record amounts of photos and data are being shared across Facebook.

But these emerging services will have to find ways to embrace the cloud without ostracizing consumers. Thus far, there's a general consensus that marketers have done a poor job of explaining the cloud to consumers.

Hazy perceptions of cloud services may require these companies to hone their pitch to be understood.

Cloud marketers may need to either educate consumers or stop referring to the cloud altogether, the Ipsos report says. Apple chose to embrace the cloud in its recent iCloud debut, while Google downplayed the cloud in its launch.

Apple wants to "brand (the cloud) and own it for sure," says Ipsos analyst Todd Board.

Google, on the other hand, chose not to make cloud-specific references when it launched its cloud-based Chromebook tablet computers. The search giant instead focused on such language as "nothing but the Web" to describe the services.

Ipsos says that influential consumer cloud players — Apple, Google and Amazon — will have to stay focused on fixing user perceptions.

Here's a look at recently announced consumer cloud services from the three key companies:

Amazon?s Cloud

Amazon was the first of the bunch to embrace the consumer cloud for digital media.

Its Cloud Drive is intended to help store music, videos, photos and documents at Amazon.com. The online retailer provides 5 gigabytes of free online storage. Those who purchase one album at Amazon's MP3 Store will be granted 20 gigabytes of storage for up to a year.

Customers can purchase up to 1,000 gigabytes of storage for $1,000 per year, capable of housing roughly 200,000 songs.

People can access content from the service across multiple gizmos.

It works on PCs, Android and BlackBerry devices, but not on Apple's iOS mobile operating system for iPods, iPads and iPhones.

Don't expect the service to sync content across all devices. "They're really not there yet," Levitas says.

What Amazon lacks in user-friendly synchronization, it makes up for in the sheer size of its cloud infrastructure, analysts say. But Amazon's cloud security has come under scrutiny of late.

Amazon is still recovering from the black eye of its cloud services crash.

The company's cloud-serving businesses went down in April, taking with it Foursquare, Quora and Reddit, among numerous other websites.

Worse, Amazon's EC2 cloud service has also been fingered for its use as a staging ground for the hack attacks that brought down Sony's PlayStation Network.

"There's a critical mass of that kind of concern for understandable reasons," Board says.

Google?s Cloud

Google is taking a different tack. Last month, at its Google I/O developer conference, it announced its cloud services, touting Music Beta by Google and Movies on the Android Market. Google's Movies service allows Android users to rent movies, play them back on Android devices and keep copies for offline consumption.

Music Beta by Google allows people to copy digital music to the cloud, stream tunes to Android devices, and keep some songs locally for playback offline.

Google also bolstered its cloud-based office software presence, detailing Chromebooks. Think of a Chromebook as a dummy terminal laptop. The laptop isn't intended for local storage of documents; rather, it accesses software and stores it on the cloud. For $20 a month, students can use a Chromebook that will have tech support and Google's online office productivity software among online applications. The service runs $28 per month for businesses. The notebooks are Wi-Fi ready, but 3G plans cost extra.

"For the foreseeable future, it's not a good product for the average consumer," says Levitas.

Google's Web-based laptop will likely concern consumers because it lacks internal storage and assumes that everyone has access to Wi-Fi at all times. Also, it gets pricey to add on a $30 per month wireless plan for those who want to be always connected and assured about storage concerns.

Still, Google was brave to "put a flag in the sand" with Chromebooks, Board says.

Apple?s iCloud

Of the three, industry experts say, Apple is poised to offer the best consumer services across devices.

Apple's iCloud is intended to house media and pipe it across devices wirelessly. The service will update applications running on Macs, PCs, iPads, iPhones and iPod touch devices. ICloud is set to start with updates to the iOS 5 mobile operating system in the fall.

Among other features, iCloud's Photo Stream will automatically upload to the cloud any photos taken on an Apple device and wirelessly push them to all of one's devices and computers. The service will put to work Apple's new $500 million data center. Apple's iCloud should be self-explanatory to use and automatic in sending and retrieving from the cloud.

Industry experts say iCloud will simplify management of music, videos and photos across Apple devices.

"ICloud is an enhancement that builds on top of what Apple is already doing, bringing together these disparate devices," says Levitas.

Apple wants to take the pain out of manually moving photos, videos and music among devices. It's "customer lock-in" for Apple, she says.

ICloud also makes a move into Google's online office sandbox. Apple's Pages (a Docs rival), Numbers (for spreadsheets) and Keynote apps will automatically push out changes made on one device to all devices. People will get 5 gigabytes of storage for documents, e-mail and backup.

Forrester noted in a report that Apple's iCloud "takes the lead" in personal cloud services.

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