Apple’s MobileMe highlights problems endemic to cloud computing

"MobileMe has garnered positive reviews for its features and its intuitive user interface. But accessing Apple's cloud has been a stormy experience for some users," Rich Parr writes for MIT's Technology Review.

"Cloud computing has been touted as a potential tool for everything from improving business infrastructure to helping consumers keep tabs on their contacts. Storing data in the 'cloud' of the Internet rather than locally allows users to access that information anywhere and at any time," Parr writes.

"Some cloud-computing applications--like Google's Gmail, Google Calendar, and the Google Docs document-sharing and -editing service--live entirely in the cloud: users' data is stored remotely and accessed via a Web browser. Other applications--like the contact-syncing service Plaxo--use the cloud to back up data and keep it up to date across multiple computers and mobile devices," Parr writes.

"MobileMe combines both approaches, syncing data between computers while providing access to a user's e-mail, contacts, calendar, and photos via the Web," Parr writes. "But the service's troubles illustrate an obstacle to the mass acceptance of cloud computing: the average user has a low tolerance for downtime."
article here:
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/21133/