Cloud nine

A lot has been written about cloud-based computing, and it has become a popular topic of conversation in the world of technology. It is the big change that IT is going through at the moment, and it is interesting to look back over the history of computing to see how or why this happened.

Some of you may remember the concept of mainframe computing, and, if you go back further, even stranger and less useful devices proliferated offices in the '60s and '70s. For fans of the Enigma machine, and the WW2 decoders, Alan Turing's machines were enormous beasts, operated by one or more persons, for one process, to extract one result. Of course that one result was equivalent to the efforts of many humans, so it was progress. The first useful foray for computers into the world of business came in the form of mainframe or mini computers. These were also large and cumbersome machines, but ones that could serve the same process to more than one person. Each person used a dumb terminal '“ one that had no local processing power or storage of its own, but received all its instruction from the mainframe. This was the birth of business computing, and the fact that the machine served a number of users gave it the economic scale required for it to provide useful efficiency gains for business users.

Law firms soon picked up on this, and the systems that gave you electronic typing and accounting functions morphed into other areas such as practice management tools, and automation of some routines.

PC power

Mainframes, however, were still very inflexible. They would only run a certain number of applications, and those applications had to be specifically designed for that type of system. Nor were they affordable for smaller businesses, and certainly not for home users. The development of the PC changed that, and also changed the landscape for businesses generally. Here was a self-contained device, for which innumerable programs could be developed. It had flexibility, was relatively easy to use, and could be joined to other machines to share information. The PC was so successful that we still use them routinely today. While they may be connected to servers in order to get information for users, they can still be used as a stand-alone device. And Moore's law has ensured that the processing power contained in PCs and laptops is always more than adequate for most uses. The rise of the PC meant that most small businesses and individuals could afford to buy and use them. And, linked to this, programmers and systems people could write smaller, more agile programs for people to use. In effect, all of the original ingredients of computing '“ the processing power, the storage and the programs '“ were now run on small machines local to the user. Computing became truly distributed, and very affordable. The introduction of the spreadsheet application, the first so-called 'killer application' (an application that gives a device its mass appeal) gave many PC users and small businesses an extremely flexible tool for mathematical and financial calculations. Many years later there are still plenty of firms that run their finances on spreadsheet applications.

Over the last few years there have been some interesting trends in computing, for example virtualisation, but arguably not a wholesale shift as we saw with the move to the PC. This, however, has changed with the advent of cloud computing. It is the event that is taking computing back towards the mainframe style of delivery. That is, one where your PC is gradually reduced in functionality as applications and services are delivered to it, rather than run on it.

Perfect timing

The legal world is a heavy consumer of technology. Imagine a law firm that runs without computers. It doesn't seem possible, and probably isn't. While law firms invest in complex software for their environments, they tend to be a few steps back from the cutting edge. Thus where some businesses are moving part or wholesale into the cloud, law firms are moving at a more gentle speed. Some of the issues they undoubtedly wrestle with include information security, and possibly connectivity issues. However, I believe many law firms will migrate over to cloud-based services in the coming years.

One interesting aspect of the advent of cloud computing for lawyers is how it has emerged at a time when the industry is going through what is likely to be a most fundamental change. That is the effects of the Legal Services Act. The Act has yet to have wholesale impact, but prophecies tend to suggest that efficiency and economies of scale used by new entrants will make inroads into certain legal market areas. This leads to the suggestion that firms have to find more economical and efficient means to deliver their services, and cloud computing is a key aspect of this.

It does not provide a magic bullet solution in its own right, but it does give businesses an inexpensive technology platform, and can provide some services at a fraction of the cost of running your own.