Google's Schmidt Says He 'Screwed Up' On Social Networking

"Google chairman Eric Schmidt took responsibility for the search titan's failure to counter Facebook's explosive growth, saying he saw the threat coming but failed to counter it." Note: The original link's landing page was changed after we posted it. The one showing now goes to a Wired article. The same story (coverage of a May 31 conference presentation by Schmidt) also quotes him as saying, unsurprisingly, that cloud services will be 'the death of IT as we know it.'"

Yeah Right....

[Lumpy]

No company worth their salt will put all the company data "on the cloud" No way in HELL is my customer DB and accounting DB going on the cloud.

Re:Why did they fail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Zuckerberg is, though.

Re:Yeah Right....

[antifoidulus]

Pretty much like every tech trend before it, and after it, cloud computing will do a fraction of what it's supporters say it will do, and many times what it's detractors say it cannot do. Just look at pretty much EVERY other tech trend ever.... dot com? Didn't really change how we bought dog food, did change how we shop for a lot of other articles though. Offshore outsourcing? According to a Gartner report in 2003 or thereabouts, right now over 50% of all US IT jobs should be in India and there was predicted to be massive unemployment in the US IT sector, while the detractors said that all the work that went to India will come back because the Indians cannot do it. The truth? Nowhere near what Gartner said, but significantly more work is outsourced than before and isn't coming back, so the detractors were wrong too.

Cloud computing is in a similar position IMO. Of course the owner of one of the biggest clouds on the planet is going to be all gung ho about cloud computing, and of course people whose jobs may be threatened will say it will never work. But if you look in between that, there are some exciting opportunities for the cloud, but also some severe limitations that may never be completely overcome.

Long story short, if someone is telling you "Technology x will do a-z!" and someone else shouts back "Technology x is worthless!", you are better off not believing either of them.

Re:Yeah Right....

[jrumney]

No company worth their salt will put consumer grade PCs on every desktop. No way in HELL is my mainframe based customer DB and accounting DB going to be accessible on the LAN.

Re:Death of IT *in the USA*

[tekrat]

I think what he means is that it's the death of IT in America.

I mean, with virtualization, "cloud" services can allow your admins to be in a cheaper country, like India. Since you never get to touch your hardware, your admins don't need to touch the hardware anymore either.

It's yet another way for management to increase profitability by lowering costs by firing everyone except themselves, who all get big fat bonuses.

What the "cloud" really provides is yet another way to make the rich richer, and everyone else poorer.

Never mind that they are handing the crown jewels over to a bunch of people, who, should the shit hit the fan, are more than happy to steal all that data and keep it for themselves, leaving their rich corporate masters with nothing.

It's akin to giving the serfs all the weapons to protect the castle, and then the king thinking he's somehow safe even though no guards are loyal to him.

Greed has truly fucked up this country. We're going to find, in less than a decade, that we've given away everything that made this nation great, and we'll be left with very little to show for it. Rome was smarter than we were.

Re:Death of IT *in the USA*

[icebraining]

It's yet another way for management to increase profitability by lowering costs by firing everyone except themselves, who all get big fat bonuses.

And hiring a bunch of Indians. But who cares about those, amirite?