Google Apps Biggest Win

In reading the article "Google convinces Spanish bank BBVA to use cloud" got me thinking about what this means for the industry.

Having run not only my own business, but also had a lot of freelance consulting work, I've used Google's "Apps" since their incarnation; from Gmail & calendar, to docs, to web tools like Analytics and even their less known tools like the App Engine. These free tools have allowed me instant access to all my information from anywhere in the world.

I've quite often kept highly confidential information on my Gmail account and in Google docs documents and not once did I think that it was possible for someone to access my data because it was on a share server. Having a solid understanding of technology I also knew that Google's advertising within Gmail was not risking my privacy and that my confidential information was safe - simply because of the one-way nature of encryption. In fact I've found a supplier for my business because of an ad that popped up when e-mail my business partner about how to solve a particular dilemma.

A lot of people think that a public cloud being 'secure' is a lot like radiation from a mobile phone. It all sounds safe, and all the studies suggest that it is, but the technology is so new. How can we really know what will happen in the long run?

Now that Google has won a 100,000+ seat account it is not only a victory for them but for the entire cloud industry. That a bank is willing to trust their data to Google, a company often chided about privacy concerns, and to boot putting their inter-office communications in the cloud, speaks a lot to the growing confidence in cloud.

The biggest concern the bank had was whether or not there was enough bandwidth to support the move. The bandwidth concern raises some interesting issues for me with regards to the NBN. Surely businesses in Australia should be the biggest group pushing for the NBN roll-out regardless of the cost. Large businesses like the big-4 banks or mining companies can afford to pay Telstra to roll-out private pipes for their networks. What about the SME's who rely on public infrastructure?

This big win from Google reminds us that technology is growing at a rapid rate and with that expansion we are losing a lot of concerns we use to have: data sovereignty, down-time access, off-line access, etc. Is our infrastructure ready to support these changes?