01.16.11
Fog Computing a Materialisation of New Microsoft Lock-in Threats
Summary: Microsoft is trying to control people’s entire life — including health records — using Fog Computing as the marketing/excuse
AS we have shown over the past few years, Microsoft uses the server side to solidify lock-in that previous existed only at the client side. Microsoft found another AZune [sic] partner in spite of the departure of Ray Ozzie [1, 2, 3], which casts shadow upon it. A British Microsoft booster, Gavin Clarke, says that Microsoft co-opts NoSQL for AZune and following UK intervention from the likes of Richard Steele, parts of the British government is still in bed with AZune [1, 2] although it is mostly going underground and there is a similar arrangement reported by the United States Department of Agriculture [1, 2] (risking famine by Microsoft). Microsoft booster Mary Jo Foley promotes Azune too, but what else can be expected from her? Responsible journalism? No, it’s promotional.
One of the abominable areas where Microsoft tries to make the population depend on its existence is healthcare. It’s not a coincidence. If Microsoft can make people’s lives (e.g. health records) depend on its existence, then the company will be bailed out when it cannot repay its debt. Not so long ago Microsoft was treading on Canadian patients via Telus and the Calgary Herald has more to say (albeit not enough):
Telus and Microsoft partner to provide Canadians access to medical records
[...]
Telus wants to take medical records out of the filing cabinets of health-care providers and put them into the smartphones and laptops of patients.
Were clients asked for their consent? What happens when Microsoft employee leak this data, lose it, or take some of it home? It is inevitable, teaches history. What happens if/when Microsoft vanishes (no company lasts forever, unlike a healthcare system). There is another such bad decision being made, where the National Cancer Institute is signing a Microsoft deal, thus losing control of its own operations. Dana Blankenhorn says that Microsoft may even want to control the lives of Chinese patients now, based on this press release on the face of it. Here are two more examples of this kind. Microsoft is getting a lot of invaluable lock-in and pretending not to pursue profit with it. It’s about bailout, it’s about having people dependent on Microsoft. The abusive monopolist instantaneously becomes a matter of life or death to many, and that’s not a good thing at all. Who are the people that sign those deal? Therein lies the scandal. For that matter, Google’s analogous program for healthcare is not acceptable either. That too is proprietary and the software is run remotely. Will it take some death by ‘clouds’ to shake people a bit and pull their heads out of the fog? Why does Misys play along with Microsoft? No lessons learned from what happened to previous collaborators of Microsoft (press release is here by the way)?
“So, the question is whether Microsoft’s marketing efforts are good or bad for the cloud computing movement.”
–Jeff KaplanDavid Linthicum’s headline alleges that “Microsoft is hijacking the cloud” and his summary says: “With TV commercials focused on the consumer, Redmond’s simplistic definition is obscuring the cloud’s full value”
Jeff Kaplan wonders “What Microsoft’s ‘To the Cloud’ Ads Really Promote” and the point he is making can be summarised as follows: “So, the question is whether Microsoft’s marketing efforts are good or bad for the cloud computing movement.”
Marketing Fog Computing is preaching ignorance, carelessness, and the following of someone else’s orders. Richard Stallman was correct when about 2 years ago he told the corporate press that Fog Computing was just marketing hype. More recently he wrote an insightful post on the subject. By that stage, more people have realised that he was right all along. █
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