“No doubt you’re going to see significant security issues with people uploading different things to the cloud,” says Nemertes Research analyst Andreas Antonopoulos. “You saw that over the weekend with the Chinese hackers who hacked into government officials’ Gmail accounts. Why were those people using Google for email when they’ve already been issued secure BlackBerrys?”
In other words, IT departments are going to have to find a way to deny permission to sync sensitive corporate documents or pictures over the iCloud.
Three: It’s likely to draw more people into the Apple Borg.
Apple’s goal has long been to use the computer as a hub for all personal and home entertainment applications, whether it involves listening to music, watching movies, surfing the Web or making phone calls. With iTunes, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, Apple successfully branched out to create a line of popular products that acted as complimentary add-ons to its laptops and other computers. Giles Cottle, a senior analyst at Informa Telecoms and Media, notes that Apple’s success has come even though it has eschewed the open-source philosophy of companies like Google, whose Android mobile platform can be modified by device manufacturers to be customized for different devices.
“Apple’s tight control of its device ecosystem means that iCloud is much more likely to, as Steve Jobs puts it, ‘just work,’” writes Cottle. “Apple’s total control of the device and content ecosystem has been heavily criticized in the past, but, if iCloud works as well in practice as it did in today’s demo, it’s a stunning validation of the power of closed ecosystems.”
Forester Research analyst Frank Gillett, meanwhile, thinks that Apple’s strong standing among consumers will make cloud computing a consumer staple in the same way the iPod made portable digital music a staple. What’s more, he thinks potential Apple competitors will have a tough time catching up.
“With the trifecta of iCloud, Mac OS X Lion, and iOS5, Apple takes the lead in personal cloud implementation and vision, with the broadest support across a user’s Macs, Windows PCs, iPhones, and iPads, and deep support for third-party developer integration into iCloud,” writes Gillett. “Google is worth watching as a number two player, but will struggle to match Apple as it tries to move the world’s apps into the Chrome browser. Microsoft, with no articulated vision for personal cloud and Windows 8 expected sometime in 2012, lags significantly. So Apple has lots of time to keep building momentum for its ecosystem of devices and cloud services.”
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