Steve Jobs, the Apple Inc. chairman and co-founder who pioneered the personal-computer and technology industry changed the way people think about technology, died Wednesday October 5, 2011, at the age of 56.  His innovation in the personal-computer space, lead to what would become the concept of the Cloud.  Steve didn’t invent the cloud, or the Internet, or even the first smart phone – but his concepts and innovations helped pioneer and push forward a merging of technology and ease of use that lead to the Cloud.  His forward thinking methods of universal access to information and the products he brought to market to accomplish this are what started and lead to mainstream access to the masses to what today is termed the Cloud.  I’m not referring to the iCloud – apple’s service platform to make sharing and storing data easy on an Apple device, but rather I’m talking about Steve Jobs’ impact on making the concept of the Cloud a reality.

Steve Jobs was talking cloud back in 1997, shortly after (or before depending where you were on the tech evolution chart) we all had our first email address and dialup modems – take a look at this video:

There was a time before iPhones and iPads, where the Cloud was still called ‘just the Internet’ – which basically meant to be ‘in the cloud’ you were using a blackberry phone to send email on the go and you maybe would sync up your calendars and appointments.  What Apple did that really pioneered the Cloud however was to make it accessible to everyone, with the iPhone and now the iPad.  Apple didn’t create the first smart phone, but the certainly revolutioned it to spawn dozens of clones and competitors such as Droid which lead to 100’s of millions if not billions of people being connected at all times.  Once the masses were connected – the applications that now drive the Cloud started to take form  on those platforms. The Cloud evolved from just sending email or checking your appointments to full blown access to all your information any where any time.  Now people are using their phones, tablets and even their TV’s to login into remote networks, office desktops, virtual desktops, and accessing information any where at any time.  Steve didn’t invent the Cloud, or even the first smart phone – but he dominated and innovated the space that let that innovation flourish to what we see today as hand held access to all your information at anytime, the Cloud.

Steve Jobs had many innovations, from making personal computers easier to use, to communicating easier, to un-tethered any-where any-time access to your data.  His mark on the origins of the Cloud can be seen so eliquently today as you sit on a park bench and watch passers by with iPads and iPhones in hand – some working, some having fun but demonstrating one of the many contribution’s Steve made. 

At the risk of  this post being another article on the passing of Steve Jobs, I will mention the impact Steve and Apple had on my life.  From the first computer I ever owned (an Apple IIe) and learned to program and use a computer modem with, to the device that doesn’t leave my side today with the iPad that keeps me connected to my TurnKey Desk virtual desktop at the office.  It was that first computer Steve created and Apple sold me with which I learned from that got me started down this career path. Steve Jobs will be missed by many, but the innovations and mark he left on the world will always be visible. 

– Adam Wills, CEO
-TurnKey Internet, Inc

 A number of people have asked us in the last week how TurnKey Cloud compares to the soon to release Apple iCloud.  The short answer is they are 2 very different products, and 2 very different outlooks towards the future and uses of ‘The Cloud’.

 First let’s cover What Is The Cloud : The Cloud is IT on Demand. The cloud is a scalable, reliable and cost-effective way of accessing information technology at any time from anywhere. The technology of the cloud revolves around the benefits of moving expensive and complicated IT out of your office into an efficient, scalable, and secure datacenter.

 Apple’s iCloud focuses on just storing and sharing data (photos, videos, music, contacts, calendar, address book, and application data such as a document, spread sheet or configuration file) while constantly transmitting that data back and forth to the device of your choosing (such as an iPhone, Mac desktop, Mac laptop, or an iPad).  All the computer processing power and applications run on the specific device, and are limited by the memory, cpu and operating system software of that particular device.  If you want to work on a document, you need the word processor application installed on your iPhone, and your Desktop, and your iPad so it can run the application and read the data. Your data is constantly transmitted back and forth between your devices, synchronizing back to Apple’s central datacenter(s), so it enjoys the benefits of being stored off-site and available in case one of your devices was damaged or lost. 

 One of the downsides of the Apple iCloud design is that you are tied into their applications and platform – if you have employees on the road using blackberry, droid or other mobile devices they wont be integrated as closely into the data that is shared via iCloud.  Another downside in this model, is if you need to run an application that requires large amounts of memory, or cpu power – you are limited to the maximum capacity of the device you are using from Apple.  Need to crunch some numbers in your spread sheet, you can’t go faster than the processor of your device – there is no way to expand the cpu or speed.

With TurnKey Cloud you get the same storage and sharing benefits similar to Apple iCloud such as geographic redundancy, off site backups, best practices security and redundancy for your data.  The key difference of TurnKey Cloud  is that all the applications run inside the cloud, and you can access them via any device without being limited to a specific device brand.  For instance with TurnKey Desk Virtual Desktop   you can run a copy of Microsoft Office 2010, and access the entire computing platform from an iPad, iphone, blackberry, home or office PC, etc.  Where you can not normally run an application such as Microsoft Office on an apple device such as an iPhone, through the TurnKey Desk Virtual Desktop you can now universally access the same applications and data from any device, any where, at any time.

With TurnKey Cloud – our datacenter(s) are where your IT equipment, office servers, desktop applications, web applications, business software and data can all be accessed easily, at a much lower cost, and securely via the Internet.  You can access this information from any device, and when you need more speed, memory or space you can instantly scale to the size you need since the computing resources are entirely in the cloud, and not limited or tied to the cpu processing of the device you are using to access the application.

  The Cloud is all about universal access to your data, from anywhere – and while both Apple’s iCloud and TurnKey Cloud have the same goal – only TurnKey Cloud gives you the ultimate flexibility to run your applications, and access your data today across any platform, or device.