You can always tell when the computer software industry starts casting about for the next big thing that will ramp up some profits. Just look at the press release drum beat recently:

• Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley Researchers Collaborate With Industry to Develop Measures of Quality and Performance for Cloud-Computing Services
• UBM Studios Delivers Rich Virtual Experience for UBM Everything Channel’s ‘Cloud Computing Is All the Rage: How Solution Providers Can Get Into the Game and Grow Their Business’ Event
• Capgemini and Microsoft to Help Businesses Make the Journey to the Cloud
• SAP, Cisco, EMC and VMware Team to Speed the Journey to Cloud Computing

Now, they would have us believe it’s all about the “cloud.” It’s no wonder, since the software model is not really working all that well anymore. This is, and always has been especially true for construction. Computing in a cloud though, almost has the sound of virtual reality.

Just the name should send shivers down the spine of anyone concerned about information security. It wasn’t enough that for years users have been hobbled with inefficiencies complicated by battles between proprietary rivals, but now the same players will ask us to forget all that and just start doing everything online. Upload our project plans and budgets and contracts and trust that not only will they be there when we need them, but that they will also remain confidential. But of course you see where all of this is going, right? Once the systems are in place and software as we know it goes away, bandwidth becomes the new commodity. Cell phones are already stretching the bandwidth infrastructure, so just wait until the entire world’s business paperwork is online.

I don’t want to sound too negative about this because I can see some relief for companies that don’t have IT departments, and, those that do too. Software just costs too much to buy and manage. So maybe paying for bandwidth would be better.

If construction can get over the information security hurdles then cloud computing could offer the solution so many companies are looking for – namely getting things automated from end to end without having to cobble together disparate software solutions and then pay the cost of maintaining them.

The security issue according to a couple of researchers at Stanford can be handled by having a private cloud along with the public cloud (see the graphic above). Of course this could also reduce efficiency by providing ready excuses for those who couldn’t get the job done.

Project manager, “How come I don’t have those change order estimates I asked for?”

Subcontractor, “It’s all in the cloud, baby.”

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