Head In the Clouds
I’m becoming increasingly fascinated by cloud computing. Yes, any true geek will tell you that this is not news, and that we’ve been utilizing small clouds for a while already. But there is something else in the cloud that I’m so far only sensing — call it my scholar-sense (like Spidey-sense, but less cool) tingling. Where a lot of the commentators seem to think that cloud computing will change things like automation and raw computing, I’m thinking about how the cloud could actually change the way we do business. Something like this: The theory of the firm is built on the notion of transaction costs. With a big enough cloud, these costs could approach nil. yet it would be silly to assume that firms would cease to exist, and I do not think that the notion of institutional forces is enough to explain the continued existance of firms. So cloud computing, in an odd and roundabout way, might point to an interesting idea about why firms exists. Then again, this morning coffee of mine might just be stronger than usual.
