Cloud computing

Sam Peters from Google spoke about cloud computing.
The type of things we have been experimenting with at College. She spoke about the fact that most people will have mobile access on their phones soon, more people than will have broadband at home.
The cloud can free IT Services from maintaining systems, it is estimated that 8 out of 10 dollars in US businesses is spent on IT maintanence rather than new or innovative solutions. IT Services is also not usually core to the business, & the cloudcan free them from this maintanence.
What's in it for Google?
Giving things free to education is getting the businessmodel in to the future leaders of business, with the hope that they will use Google apps & services in the future.
They were advocating the Google apps for education, but debate here at College has been more radical, to look at (for the student side of things) total personal clouds rather than institutional ones.