Movable Clouds Migrate To Chase Tax Breaks 151
1sockchuck writes "State legislators have been offering huge tax incentives to attract data center projects from cloud-builders. But what happens if the political climate changes and the tax break disappears? If you're Microsoft, you can just take your cloud and move it someplace else. The infrastructure for the Windows Azure platform is being migrated out of a facility in central Washington after the state ruled that data centers no longer qualify for a tax exemption on equipment. Mike Manos, a key player in site selection for many major data centers, predicts that future cloud platforms will move often to chase lower taxes or cheaper power."
Sure, clouds move ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Everyone who has ever looked at the sky know that clouds move, and change their movement if the wind changes. And if the cloud gets too big, it starts to lose water by dropping it on the ground, while small clouds tend to evaporate away completely. It's only natural that computing clouds behave the same. Just wait for the first digital thunderstorm in the cloud. And don't be too upset about the data losses.
Re:Responsibility to society or shareholders? (Score:1, Interesting)
Many Christians believe that those who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven are already named in the Book of Life. God is omniscient, therefore he already knows who will spend eternity in Glory and who will burn forever in the Lake of Fire. Calvinists hold this concept of preordination.
However such a concept flies in the face of a loving Creator for many Christians. So these subscribe to the concept of Free Will. The choices you make in life actually affect how you will be judged in the afterlife.
What it boils down to, though, is whether God is omnipotent and omniscient. If he is, then he knows that a vast number of people will die and enter the flames of Hades, and his refusal to do anything about it is far from the loving God caricature He is portrayed as. On the other hand, if he isn't those things, then how shall we live such that we can pass lightly through the Gates of St. Peter? Isn't the fallibility and lack of knowledge a sign of weakness in our God?
What this brings me to is your comment.
From the outset of what? Are laws never to be changed? No one can know the perfect formulation of taxes and services from the outset of incorporation. Laws should be allowed to change as no politician is infallible, and thus those subject to those laws should also have the ability to adapt (even to the point of leaving the neighborhood/city/state/country) if those laws become too heavy a burden.
It is a mistake to think that laws are perfect from Day 1.
Your data in a cloud over India (Score:5, Interesting)
The genius of shipping container datacenters (Score:1, Interesting)
This is why I continue to maintain that shipping container datacenters (or houses even) are a brilliant idea. It totally screws with the concept of real estate being, well, permanent. But more importantly, it allows you to do things that were otherwise impossible to do.
Don't like the political climate? Unplug, drop them on trucks and within a week, you could LITERALLY move and reestablish a full data center from start to finish, assuming the infrastructure was in place at the destination (power, cooling, flat land). Mostly just power.
It's no wonder Google and Microsoft (and many others) embrace the concept of cheap equipment that is housed in a high density and highly mobile setup.
It's no longer a bluff when you can LITERALLY truck an entire 400,000 sq ft facility in a weeks time and for a cost that would be far less than the expected increase in taxes/regulation/etc. You could even stage it such that downtime would be minimal at best. Rolling restarts, literally!