Where are you storing data?

Where are you storing data?
By Erik Murphy – VP, Operations

I read a Wall Street Journal article back on 11/27/07 about Google’s plans to offer a service to store user’s data.  This article triggered a huge ah-ha for me.  It started me thinking about how many of my computing problems would be solved by storing my data out on the internet accessible from any PC with an internet connection.  Not only would I have a central place to store all my photos, music and media files but I potentially would not have to worry about doing any kind of offsite backup.

Based on the article, I am not sure how Google actually plans to implement this data storage service, but if it were as easily accessible as another mapped drive from windows explorer that would be optimal.  I would also like the service to include version control software to help manage files that I may want to download locally to my PC in case I did not have an internet connection.  This would all be available after authenticating you have access to this data.

I have an inkling where Google is going with this.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the next step would be to create a platform within the browser to build applications that would access this data.  Then you wouldn’t even need to have any more software on your PC than a browser to do a large amount of work.  The MSFT shareholder in me hopes that Microsoft is working on something similar because this certainly seems like a direction away from Windows-based computing.

While I know that there are several issues with security and privacy to work out, I am also certain this is going to happen someday.  As web apps get better and better we are going to be more free to do our computing anywhere we want.  I have Spain in mind or perhaps the British Virgin Islands.