Buying Real Estate in the Clouds
Image by Ben Requena
Trend Predictions
03.05.2009
You buy software the same way you buy a novel. When you buy a book, you're not just paying for the glue, paper and ink. You're also buying the right to read it - sort of like the way you'd be "stealing" if you stood at the news stand and read an entire newspaper, then walked away without paying for it.
Similarly, when you buy software, what you're really buying is the right to run the software. It took time for us to get used to the idea of buying music at iTunes and not getting some tangible object (CD, tape, LP) to mark our ownership. I have yet to grow any more comfortable with the idea of buying a book as ones and zeroes. But I think in 2009, we'll see a lot of folks begin to lose even more of their inhibitions around buying software that runs "in the cloud" - that runs somewhere in, and is accessed through the Internet.
We get invested in our software. We use it to create things we don't want to be without, and that tends to make us want to keep our software close. In the same way that having a CD ensures that we will not lose access to our tunes, we tend to want to have the install discs for our software and run it on our own computers.
Practicality is taking hold, however. Personal, business and enterprise software that is location, platform and device independent is simply more practical than software that isn't. It's more social, scales better and is more (not less) reliable. Most importantly, in 2009, lower up-front and ownership costs and smoother upgrades will appeal to budget-conscious consumers and organizations.
Just remember, you still need to make backups.
