The future of computing will take place in a "cloud". Companies will minimise the need to build their own data centres as they will not be hosting their own applications but will be buying infocomm applications for their businesses over the web. Software will then be viewed as a service, a utility which can be accessed through web browsers.

These were some of the insights shared by Mr Paul Slakey, Enterprise Director, Asia-Pacific and Latin America of Google ( http://www.google.com/ ), in his keynote address at the recent iX 2008 Conference organised by the Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation. iX 2008 was part of the Infocomm Media Business Exchange, Asia's largest infocomm and media event, which also included CommunicAsia2008, BroadcastAsia2008 and CGOverdrive.

Mr Slakey: 'Cloud' will revolutionise computing, just as long-distance electrical wires did with electricity.

According to Mr Slakey, cloud computing will revolutionise computing, much in the same way as long-distance electrical wires did with the provision of electricity, which eliminated the need for utility companies to install power plants near urban areas.

As it is, consumers are already exploiting simple easy-to-use tools over the Internet for their instant messaging and social computing applications. "There is an inversion taking place recently. No longer are the best and most cutting edge technologies found in the Internet but in the homes. It is the consumers who now use leading applications such as instant messaging, voice over Internet protocol, mobile networking and social computing."

This trend, he said, will migrate to the business world and when it does so, it will give rise to power collaborators, the characteristic of the 21st century employee. "Productivity gains in future will centre not just on the individual employee but on the team and the ‘cloud' enables collaboration within and between the teams to be so much simpler as it does not require everyone to have the same version of the application downloaded on their computers for collaboration to happen."

As the world becomes more globalised, these Web applications will be fitted with instant translation, which means that each member of the global team can work using the language he or she is most familiar with, and yet be able to communicate with each other effectively.

Mr Slakey also highlighted some of the barriers to cloud computing – connectivity, user experience, reliability, off-line access and security – but said that these obstacles are fast falling away. "While it was difficult to be connected to the Web 10 years ago while a person is on the road, it is no longer the case today. Mobile workers can now access high-speed Internet link in many cities," he commented.

He also pointed out that both user experience and reliability have improved by leaps and bounds and that companies developing applications for cloud computing are well aware of the need for companies to have off-line access and are providing these features in their applications.

He sees security as the last frontier. This has always been a serious concern of governments and companies and he said that, "it is a legitimate concern and we are making sure that we can protect your data better than you with redundancy currently being built in."

In the future, he said, it was more likely that the weak link would be the physical computer, which was so highly susceptible to thefts. He said 10 per cent of laptops are stolen within their first year of purchase, often with sensitive information inside. Rounding off his talk, Mr Slakey conceded that while cloud computing would take centrestage in future, on premises software would not go away, and most corporations would be using both in their organisations.