I think ownership of private clouds matter the same way the ownership of just about anything matters - over the non-ownership of things. When people were able to own their own phones a couple decades back, the sales and innovation of phones took off. When people were able to own their own cars, the sales of cars took off - which led to a huge expansion of the transportation industry. The same thing is true for computers: the private ownership of the PC caused the computer industry to explode. We are seeing the same thing with mobile phones now. That is why I hope MS et al don't look at the easy money in herding people into public clouds, and not think about the long term impact. I believe driving people to own private clouds, and supplementing them with public cloud services, is the optimum model for the entire computer industry. Taking away ownership of IT infrastructure will simply lead to declining interest, and less imagination on the part of companies, regarding how they can manipulate their IT to become more competitive. (It is kind of like moving people out of private houses into public housing. After a while they stop caring, and lose interest beyond the most basic maintenance of their homes.)
I think companies like HP should become preoccupied with making it easy to own private clouds of any size. Even if HP and other OEMs have to come up with techniques like using extensible, easily assembled pre-fab structures, that allow companies to easily add to their IT infrastructure at the side of their buildings, in an aesthetically pleasing manner; I believe they should do so. In other words, I think OEMs should innovate around the construction and maintenance of private clouds, and not simply say it is easier to drive everyone into public clouds. History has repeatedly shown, that people are usually willing to pay more to own stuff that is easy to use and manage, rather than use public equivalents.
Taking a look at this problem from another angle: how much innovation does anyone see taking place in common public services such as power, water, sanitation, bank accounts, etc.? Compared to the computer, mobile phone, and car industries where people own the technologies, almost none. Is this what the computer industry wants? I believe everyone who has a stake in the IT industry should favor private clouds over public clouds - with public clouds filling the gaps that private clouds cannot reasonably provide. Private clouds and their ownership will allow the IT industry to continue to grow in the short and long terms, whereas public clouds will likely hinder it in the long term.
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