$240 Billion by 2020: The Future of Cloud Computing

You know something has hit critical mass when people start worrying about how to regulate it more effectively.

Consider cloud computing, which over the past few years has rapidly gained clout among international corporations as an exceptional revenue generation tool. Everything from the new Boeing 737 airplane website to video conferencing services are embracing the cloud as the most cost-effective means to deliver large amounts of information and data to a broad and constantly changing spectrum of users.

It has occurred to John Villasenor, a professor at UCLA and a fellow at the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, that this exchange of information may violate export laws. Well, perhaps “may” is putting it mildly. It does absolutely violate export laws. But are older export laws really relevant in the 21st century?

Perhaps in this globally competitive and collaborative age where information knows no bounds, we should re-evaluate our system of tariffs and export limits. These laws were designed partly to keep the coffers of government full, and partly to discourage unfair competition from overseas merchants who might maliciously undercut competitors in terms of price. However, these laws may need a rewrite to reflect the reality of the global economy. Information in of itself has become much like air: it is an element that is not only vital to life, but also ubiquitous. Banning certain types of information from entering other countries becomes ridiculous in an age where collaboration across continents is leading to rapid advances in all industries and professions.

The question of proprietary information rights may become more pressing in the future as the concept of “privacy” largely transforms into a historical relic. But how will companies protect their so-called “secret recipes”? Virtually anything can be reverse-engineered because of the sheer amount of information available to people. In many ways, proprietary information is as dated as newsprint.

Experts expect cloud computing to grow from a $40 billion dollar business this year to over $240 billion by 2020. It is no longer a question of regulating cloud computing, but rather understanding that regulations themselves must be reworked for the cloud.