Cloud Computing: How your personal computer will become a terminal

By Ola Pat

Soon enough personal computers will no longer be personal. This revolution, this change in the way we relate to our computer is sneaking up on us without us seeing it or being aware of it. It will affect us in one way or the other, after the storm is over we will never view our personal computers the way we do now. Nothing will be personal about computer again and every personal computer will become a terminal, though a useful one.

Indeed computers are personal to the owners or users. On arrival in your homes, shops or office, they arrived with nothing but basic software plus the generally needed drives. No personal or industrial applications or software. Like a new born baby’s mind “Tabula Rasa”, they came blank. Then we load them up with software and applications that appeals to us and useful for our work, thus we create a computer in our image. Engineers load their computers with all engineering software they can think off, Fashion designers, mechanics, architects, bankers, accountants, music producers and everyone that has a reason to use a computer loads it with their industry software. It is this customization, that every laptop, every desktop pass through that makes them personal computers.

Clouding Computing

But two developing sectors in the computer industry is gradually facing out personal computer and rending them into a terminal. In two or three year’s time, your treasured personal computer will be an access point and nothing about that computer will ever again be personal. For a long time, cloud storage has been in existence but has been playing back fiddle until now. Cloud storage is the storage of digital data and information on remote servers, which can be access from any internet enable computer.

Cloud storage according to some started in 1960 with Joseph C. R. Licklider’s effort on ARPANET in order to connect people with data at any point in time and place. While others pointed at CompuServe offer of a disk space to its customers in 1983. Whatever and whenever cloud storage starts, the truth of the matter is that cloud storage is becoming an industry standard. And in Nigeria, we have the Central Security Clearing System, CSCS that launched commercial Digital Storage and Retrieval system sometimes back around 2005-2006c.

With the growth and development of cloud storage, it gave birth to cloud computing. Thus, the days of personally owning software might be over. Cloud computing enables business and person have access to application without having it installed on their system, which means you don’t have to install any word processing application on your system before you can use them. Visualize it like this, you buy a new computer whether desktop or laptop without any need to install any program. No adobe reader, no word processing, CAD or VLC yet you can use or have access to all of them online.

What is bringing this lifestyle change to Nigeria is nothing more than cheap and faster internet service. It is no longer news that 4-lite internet service has landed on the shore of our country, the only news is that we have not realize the potent power packed with the service. That service will quickly grow the cloud storage and computing in Nigeria faster than we anticipated, it will give access to rapid growth in video calling and it will render our life more virtual than ever before. Already, a crop of Nigerians lived virtually online including their work. If ever you can’t see me in person – find me online, virtually yours Ola Pat.

Ola Pat is a journalist with biases for community reporting. He is a Graphic Design Consultant and an editor for an online community magazine.