This will penetrate all remaining defences against business spionage

[Skybird]

Windows 10 set to become a closed, cloud-based OS.

That means companies' IT-structures get remote-controlled by servers by MS. In the US. Defence is impossible since the penetration takes place by launching the OS already.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20130830191452_Microsoft_Windows_10_Set_to_Be_Comp any_s_First_Cloud_Operating_System_Rumour.html

Why am I preaching since years against first testing balloons being accepted by a careless consumers? This ^ is why. Its not just privacy and advert targeting anymore. It's about business spionage of so far unknown dimensions.

Profiteer: the place where the servers are. Which is which country...?

[MH]

Long live linux then....

I don't think Microsoft is so suicidal besides the article is very sketchy.

[Jimbuna]

Can't see it happening...Microsoft would be risking all their eggs in the same basket.

[Skybird]

Actually they are trailing behind in this trend. Apple does it like this since long time, imprisoning its customers in the closed and locked appleverse. Android is a closed OS. Amazon's Kindle is closed. Consoles more and more have moved for this way of gaming. Social networks. And of course the googleverse.

Let'S face it, it is the general trend: closed, remote controlled OS.

And their stubborness with W8 and 8.1 demonstrates that they have no intention to give it up.

[fireftr18]

I don't see it happening. Computers are heavily used in places where there is no reliable internet connection or where there is none at all.

[Skybird]

I don't see it happening. Computers are heavily used in places where there is no reliable internet connection or where there is none at all.
I would disagree with that statement's conclusion. The lucrative market is the developed world, the business places , the economy and industry, the players in the developed countries, consumer households.

The occasional notebook you see in the centre of the Kalahari means nothing.

And you would not believe me in what god-forsaken places I have seen satellite telephones already in the early and mid-90s. ;)

[Catfish]

This is not the only joke, MS Exchange will be cloud-based from 1/2014 on.

Yes, all your precious eMails along with the managing tools for it will be in 'the cloud'. The NSA gave information on german companies to US ones since decades, so imagine what will happen now..
I just wonder which meds some US people take, to have that level of delusion ..

Our company just ordered the last Small business server with Exchange 2010 onboard, because there will be none after december 31st, 2013; the future Exchange 'server' will be completely cloud-based.

Same with Adobe b.t.w., you will now pay 4000 Dollars for the last complete suite version (CS6), and CS 7 will cost the same - annually. From 1/2014 on. You lend it temporarily, for this small price.

We are urgently searching for a replacement after the next 5 years, and I foresee golden times for Linux, and russian programmers and their software.



B.t.w. and a bit OT (lmao): LG TVs tell their company what you see, from inserted USB sticks, to streaming, to just watching ordinary programs. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/technology/lg-tvs-spy-viewers-send-2815798

There is no privacy anymore. 'Brave new world' and '1984' - god you poor harmless authors had no idea of what was to come.

[MH]

Android is closed?
Far from it.

[zygoma]

Get used to hearing an updated voice (maybe Siri's?) quoting the oft-repeated and iconic line,
"I'm sorry, Dave, but I'm afraid I can't do that."

Besides, Bill Gates lied to me. He said that 256 kB or RAM should be enough to run any program ;)

[Red October1984]

WINDOWS 98SE FOR LIFE! :rotfl2:

Anyway, slow down. We haven't even had windows 9 yet. I don't see how we can accurately speculate on Windows 10. :hmmm:

However, the cloud IS becoming popular.

I don't trust the cloud. :shifty:

[the_tyrant]

The cloud is becoming popular because people like me are lazy as hell.

I use lync online: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/lync/lync-online-overview-and-features-online-meetings-and-instant-messaging-FX103789571.aspx

Its 2$ per user per month, I switched to it because it is simply unbeatable price and effort wise.

In comparison, if I want to install lync myself, I own a license, but just look at the install guide:

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/Lync-Server-2012-9d6fe954


Nearly 200 pages and its "step by step for everyone"!


I can't even be bothered to run my own build server now, between a custom server for debugging python scripts and visual studio online, all my programming is going into the cloud. Using an image in Amazon EC2 and paying by the hour is so much easier than setting up my own server to manage it.


Now the thing is, do I bother to care if Microsoft or Amazon is reading my code. After all, I would love it if they can fix it for me!:haha:


The cloud is very attractive for small scale users, since rolling out your own infrastructure is too damned difficult (go read that Lync setup guide, thats why full time lync admins get paid good money).


Am I concerned about my code? You could say that, but at this point, i really can't care less, the convenience the cloud provides makes it a good choice for me.

Now its obvious that the cloud is really, really effective and a good choice for small users. After all, industrial espionage isn't really a concern for small home users.


One thing that is very interesting is the rise of private clouds, like the IBM cloud deployments:

http://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/us/en/private-cloud.html


Now the question is, would you trust someone that you know better to run your cloud deployment? Would you feel safer if it was a "Subsim cloud" instead of Amazon EC2?



PS: speculating on Windows 10 already? Come on man, Windows 8.1 is barely out and you are speculating 2 versions ahead:haha:

[Skybird]

Android is closed?
Far from it.

Not closed like "shut down", but closed like "cocooned, encapsuled". Maybe my wording was wrong!?

[Sailor Steve]

I don't trust the cloud. :shifty:
Only a year ago when I downloaded music from Amazon I got a download box that showed the progress of the download. One day I got a message that I had to install the Cloud app, and from now on I had to go through the cloud app to download my music. I complained. They refunded my money from that purchase. I called them and said I didn't want my money back, they deserved it, I just wanted to not have to use the stupid cloud app.

They may have listened, or I may have just gotten used to it. Now when I purchase some music to download I get a page that says
"Your music has been saved to the Cloud.
1. Listen to your music on the cloud.
2. Download your music to your computer."

It's still annoying but it's a lot simpler now.

[Skybird]

Tyrant,

the cloud is located in the US, becasue the servers are. For companies, having their computers remote-controllable from external clouds (=US spies), is no way to go for them. Its like banks having their safe mechanisms controlled by robbers in another country.

Google and MS can claim as much as they want that they do not cooperate with the US intel services. They do, 100% certain, and I take it for certain as well that the US services massively support what the British prime minister demanded from the British GCHQ: to "support business interests of the British industry".

In other words the governmental services are ordered to steal everything from foreign companies that is of value to own companies: financial papers, inventions, blueprints, formulas, development data.

If you store that in the cloud, or you have it in your own companies network - but that network depends on an OS that only exists in the cloud, located in the US - guess in whose hands control of you data ends.

I will run W7 to death, and then disconnect it from the web, and getting a second computer based on Linux and open Gnu-sofdtware and the like. It's clear. I will not increase but reduce my internet dependence and activities.

I'm loosing interest in all that anyway, slowly, but constantly. So it is more a question of timing anyway.

[MH]

Not closed like "shut down", but closed like "cocooned, encapsuled". Maybe my wording was wrong!?
I don know what you mean....in Android it is all up to you.
In the idiot proof mode its closed and for good reason.

What are you complaining here exactly?

If you store that in the cloud, or you have it in your own companies network - but that network depends on an OS that only exists in the cloud, located in the US - guess in whose hands control of you data ends.


Do you really think that whoever cares about security will go along with it...if ever comes to this.

Cloud based OS ... :doh:

[the_tyrant]

Tyrant,

the cloud is located in the US, becasue the servers are. For companies, having their computers remote-controllable from external clouds (=US spies), is no way to go for them. Its like banks having their safe mechanisms controlled by robbers in another country.

Google and MS can claim as much as they want that they do not cooperate with the US intel services. They do, 100% certain, and I take it for certain as well that the US services massively support what the British prime minister demanded from the British GCHQ: to "support business interests of the British industry".

In other words the governmental services are ordered to steal everything from foreign companies that is of value to own companies: financial papers, inventions, blueprints, formulas, development data.

If you store that in the cloud, or you have it in your own companies network - but that network depends on an OS that only exists in the cloud, located in the US - guess in whose hands control of you data ends.

I will run W7 to death, and then disconnect it from the web, and getting a second computer based on Linux and open Gnu-sofdtware and the like. It's clear. I will not increase but reduce my internet dependence and activities.

I'm loosing interest in all that anyway, slowly, but constantly. So it is more a question of timing anyway.


Well first of all, external cloud arrangements are inevitable. Just like any other form of outsourcing, it has its risks, but as far as I see, industrial espionage isn't something that most companies are concerned about.

Hell, apple would never tell you this, but their iCloud runs on Microsoft Azure (Microsoft's Platform as a Service service). And Sony runs many of their major services on Amazon EC2. Shouldn't Apple be more afraid that their direct competitor will steal their intellectual property?

Cloud deployments, just like any other IT decision has to undergo a course of cost benefit analysis, and truth is, if not even Apple is afraid of their no. 1 competitor stealing their interlectual property, I'm not really afraid of Microsoft stealing my Minecraft server on Azure now am I?

The truth is, IT outsourcing has been here since forever. It is simply unrealistic to expect every company to do all their stuff in house.

After all, Subsim is not hosted in Neal's basement, its hosted at a web hosting company somewhere, at some datacenter far, far away from Neal. In fact, from a quick cursory search, I can see that Subsim is in Las Vegas.

Do you trust subsim? Well not totally, I won't discuss my evil schemes with the PM system here, but for its use, I trust subsim enough to use it. Even though yes, in theory the hosting company can go and take all the data off the Subsim server (hell, I even reuse this password with 2 other sites, and I trust Subsim's web host enough that they won't do it).

Public cloud deployments and software as a service will not go away. I firmly believe that it is the future.

Now the question is mostly, find the cloud provider that you trust enough not to steal your data. Would you trust me to run your cloud in my basement? Would you trust me if I ran a cloud service, but had my servers located in a datacenter somewhere else?

But private cloud deployments and self hosted servers will never go away either. Lets just look at the numbers shall we?

Lets look at Microsoft first.

Servers and tools are a 5 Billion + revenue per quarter business. Their whole web business made only 869 million that same quarter.

Why would Microsoft kill off its 5 billion business of selling server software that you run yourself, in an attempt to increase that 869 million? And remember online services includes Bing, Skype, Hotmail, etc. Their public cloud is probably only a fraction of that.

Lets than look at IBM.

IBM is arguably the biggest player in the cloud market. They are huge with their IT services, and is number 1 with private cloud deployments.

Their cloud revenue has topped 1 billion, of which their public cloud accounted for only 460 million. Their total revenue was 23.7 billion. Do you think IBM will kill off their hardware division, their software division, consulting and services division, and their private cloud business to push their public cloud?


As for Red Hat, of their 374 million revenue, barely 20 million of that is from their public cloud!


Amazon's financials are a mess, and is the only company here in my opinion that will kill off their hardware and software products to push their cloud.


As for desktop software in the cloud? Come on Skybird, you are reading an article with no sources, on a product that is like 6 years away or so. Windows 10? They haven't even started to work on windows 9 yet!

I don't believe that it is possible to run a desktop in the cloud before 2020. I have tried it in my local network, and even with Wifi 802.11 n, I cannot get acceptable performance when I access my desktop with my Surface Pro. If it doesn't even work well on my local network, what luck do they have in the cloud?

You know what Skybird, why don't you go and try Microsoft's current "cloud desktop" offering?
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/UsingASurface2RTARMToGetActualWorkDoneRemoteDeskto pVisualStudioAzure.aspx

You should be able to get a free trial or something.

Sure, Scott (the guy who wrote that piece I linked up there) can get acceptable performance on Azure. But hey, he's the cloud architect at Microsoft or something, he is sitting minutes away from one of their datacenters, and all he is doing is writing code.

You want to do something that requires a bit more performance on Azure? Impossible, performance at this point is not nearly good enough.