I confess to struggling with the concept at first. IWB points to a recent Business Week piece on ‘cloud computing’ – basically, server networks that can number in the hundreds of thousands that hold invaluable services and wells of know-how. He explains:

Why do I believe this is such a big deal? As the BusinessWeek article says, “a move towards clouds signals a fundamental shift in how we handle information.At the most basic level, it’s the computing equivalent of the evolution in electricity a century ago, when farms and businesses shut down their own generators and bought power instead from efficient industrial utilities.” Many enterprises will want to evolve and become such information and services utilities to their business customers or to consumers.

So one group of winners in ’08 will be the IT Einstein’s that can manage these digital beomoths.

But I reckon the other emerging chucklers will be early adopters who are freeing themselves from PC-stored files. Think about it: I’ll wager that you read more online today than you did off.

And with Google Gears and Docs quietly building the foundations, the concept of the do-it-all network device begins to sound a little less Dan Dare. 2008 may be the year when we cut the wires, and it’s the traditional installed application that falls to the ground. Asus Eee PC, anyone?