Agile Business Change Blog Thoughts on Agile Strategic Business Change and Agile Delivery

Tweet

Mail

The launch of Google Drive this week (Google’s cloud storage offering) has generated a lot of interest and comparisons with other cloud storage providers such as DropBox, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, and Apple’s iCloud. Some of the blogs and news articles, such as one by the Guardian, have focussed on showing the cost structures of each of the offerings and on wondering how well Google will be able to compete against the more established service providers.

What has been of note is the amount of space given to an analysis of the terms and conditions (T&Cs) of the different services. This seems to be linked to an interpretation by some people that you may lose control or ownership of your files when using Google Drive. Others see less of a difference between the service providers.

Does this mean that the time when people used to accept terms and conditions without reading them is coming to an end? Almost certainly not, though perhaps it may indicate some changes in behaviour. This on-line discussion and debate is currently focussed on public cloud services, and it will be interesting to see whether it evolves into other types of cloud services such as private clouds.

Organisations typically pay attention to terms and conditions when evaluating other types of services so it makes sense to do the same for cloud services. So, a factor in deciding when the Cloud is right for you and your organisation should be a consideration of the T&Cs that will apply. This may have more impact on which cloud service and provider you use rather than whether you use the cloud.