A nice series of articles in the Seattle Times explains cloud computing and describes Seattle’s leading role.
“‘In general, there is someone who can deliver you electricity more reliably and less expensively than you can generate it yourself,’ said Ed Lazowska, a University of Washington computer scientist. ‘What’s happening now is most of us are increasingly relying on utilities, be it Amazon, or Microsoft or Google, to give us the computing we need.’
“In other words, the power of the technology at your fingertips no longer depends on how powerful of a PC you bought for your den or the number of servers blinking in the backroom where you work.
“All you need is a credit card, which can give you access to the power and technology that enables everything from your corporate email account to a supercomputer.”
First article here. Second article here. More to come!