Who Coined the Term Cloud Computing?
Just about every modern tech company sells cloud computing power or something. This is normal: the cloud market is growing from year to year, becoming richer and wider. However, hardly any modern marketer or developer seriously wondered where this term came from. What did the authors of the original concept mean by it? Under the cut, we will correct this historical injustice and name the founders of the cloud approach.
Are you intrigued? Welcome under the cut!
Some statistics, linguistics and spoilers
The term “Cloud Computing” is the IT frontman of the last decade. According to Google, there are ~ 68 million mentions on the Internet, and this is only in English. But it is worth digging a little deeper, and it turns out that no one has any idea where this concept came from and what its origins are.
Proof of Concept: George Favaloro holds Compaq’s 1996 Business Plan. This is the earliest printed document that mentions the term “cloud computing”.
Most internet historians trace the history of “cloud computing” back to 2006, when large companies such as Google and Amazon began using the phrase to describe a new paradigm in which people access software, computing resources, and files over the Internet.
However, the very first mentions of the term Cloud Computing date back to the end of 1996. Remember this time? In our country, the ZX Spectrum is the main and almost the only home computer (IBMs, of course, were, but not all), Liko 16 bit and “those same“ playing cards are the limit of teenage fantasies, and the NetScape browser is a breakthrough program for exploring the depths of the World Wide Web. But this is here, in the post-Soviet space. And in the United States (where, in general, computerization has advanced only slightly further), around the same years, a small group of technical specialists was developing promising Internet services under the wing of Compaq Computer.
The vision of the future of the Web by academics and business people has been surprisingly detailed and forward-looking. For example, in their opinion, over time, not only standard office software had to migrate to the Internet, but also the so-called “applications supporting the cloud computing model.” For example, file storage and streaming services.
Compaq Marketing Manager George Favaloro and young developer Sean O’Sullivan (NetCentric) had big visions for the future of cloud computing. Spoiler: for both, this story ended in a completely different way. For example, Favaloro-led Compaq, in part against this pioneering idea, set up a business selling servers to Internet service providers. But O’Sullivan … But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Everything has its time.
Linguistic Promise: In 2011, the term “Cloud Computing” was not yet in the Oxford Dictionary of Modern English. However, companies were not opposed to laying their paws on its use. So, in 2008, Dell made a serious scandal by trying to register Cloud Computing as a trademark. Other vendors, such as IBM and Oracle, have repeatedly been accused of using the term incorrectly to describe legacy product lines.
The US government has also had problems with the phrase “cloud computing.” With government services shifting to cheaper cloud services, procurement staff have a need to clearly define what is “cloud computing” and what is not. The government has asked the National Institute of Standards and Technology to draw up a document describing the signs of cloudiness. The irony is that the final version of this document begins with a disclaimer: “The term ‘cloud computing’ can be interpreted in different ways by different people …”.
Who and why invented “cloud computing”
It is important to understand here that persistent truth-seeking can go too far. The very idea of using some kind of “network computing” originated in the 1960s. But these are clearly not at all the same droids The “clouds” to which we are accustomed.
On the web (as well as in publications of very large IT publications), the first use of the term Cloud Computing in its modern meaning is most often attributed to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. On August 9, 2006, at one of the industry conferences, he said: “We are now on the verge of a new computing model. And I strongly doubt that people realize all its power and significance. Its main feature is to place data and processing services on remote servers.[, а не на локальных компьютерах]… We call this approach cloud computing. That is, everything should happen somewhere out there, in the cloud. “
Within a year, the “re-invented” term gained overwhelming popularity. Small startups and industry giants, including Amazon, Microsoft and IBM, did not stand aside. Everyone wanted to present their developments under the “cloud sauce”.
Sam Johnston, director of cloud and IT services at Equinix, says there has been little clarity about the original origins of the term “cloud computing” until recently. As editor of the Wikipedia article on cloud computing, he kept a close eye on any attempts at misappropriation of the term. “There have been many attempts to ascribe it to themselves or to propose an original ‘formula’ for its invention,” writes Johnston.
However, not so long ago, the truth was revealed. Back in May 1997, the now defunct NetCentric filed application for the Cloud Computing trademark. It was supposed to be used in the educational field, in training lectures and seminars, but the US Patent Office rejected the application for unclear reasons. For example, documents written in late 1996 by employees of NetCentric and Compaq not only widely use the term “cloud computing”, but also describe a number of ideas that have been embodied in the modern Internet.
Cloud 1.0: Entrepreneur Sean O’Sullivan plans to register the cloud computing trademark in 1997. Photo taken at NetCentric’s Cambridge office in the late 1990s.
At the time, NetCentric, Sean O’Sullivan’s startup, was negotiating a $ 5 million investment from Compaq. It was assumed that the new direction of Internet services will be led and developed by George Favaloro. The goal of the project was to get Compaq into the business of selling servers to Internet service providers such as AOL. And NetCentric was a young and promising company that developed related software.
The concepts developed by the O’Sullivan-Favaloro duo predicted future IT trends for decades to come. Copies of NetCentric’s business plan even contain an imaginary bill for the “total value of electronic purchases” of a certain “George Favaloro”, including $ 18.50 for 37 minutes of video conferencing and $ 4.95 for 253 megabytes of internet storage (as well as $ 3.95 per view video with Mike Tyson’s performance in the ring).
Today file storage and video hosting are among the most widespread and demanded Internet services. But in those years they were not even in sight! According to the same documents, the NetCentric software platform was supposed to allow ISPs to bill dozens, and eventually thousands, of “cloud-enabled applications.”
It remains unclear who, Favaloro or O’Sullivan, coined the term “cloud computing”. None of them can clearly remember the moment the phrase was invented. And the hard drives that held e-mail and other “electronic” prompts are long gone.
Favaloro is inclined to believe that killed Laura Palmer it was he who came up with the term after all. He managed to track down a paper copy of a 50-page internal document Compaq titled “Cloud Computing Internet Solutions Business Unit Strategy” dated November 14, 1996. It says that local enterprise software will in the future give way to web services and, over time, will cease to be a function of hardware and will become one of the many functions of the Internet. ”
O’Sullivan questions his colleague’s words. After all, he was the one who applied for the trademark registration on behalf of his startup. In addition, in those months he was constantly present at the Compaq headquarters in Texas and could pronounce the newly coined term out loud. In an effort to restore historical justice, O’Sullivan tracked down his diary with an entry dated October 29, 1996: “Cloud Computing: Clouds Have No Borders.” This line appeared in the diary just after the meeting with Favaloro. Compaq’s handwritten note and business plan are the earliest documented mentions of the phrase “cloud computing” to date.
“Only two people could have come up with this term: me at NetCentric or George Favaloro at Compaq… or both of us doing another brainstorming session,” says O’Sullivan.
However, both cloud fathers agree that this is primarily a marketing term for customers. At that time, telecommunication networks were already called clouds; in engineering drawings, the network was often drawn as a cloud. So the market needed a catchy slogan that could align the rapidly evolving power of the Internet with the needs of Compaq’s customers.
“Computing has always been a hallmark of Compaq, but then we came up with some kind of incomprehensible” cloud “, so it was necessary to urgently link our ideas with reality,” jokes Favaloro. However, the idea, alas, did not take off. For almost a decade, no one has even thought about cloud projects.
Perhaps a little later, with the development of the Internet, someone reinvented the term. But the documents cited by Favaloro and O’Sullivan are at least of historical value. And the glory of the first “inventors” belongs to them.
In the meantime, Compaq has ditched the cloud entirely. The concept seemed to them unpromising and far-fetched. Favaloro shrugged his shoulders – as a result of his work, Compaq (which later joined HP) opened a large-scale business of distributing server hardware. He has not lost his job, so there is nothing to complain about. He jokes about his feelings during the invention of “clouds”: “Now this is ridiculous, but then this thought shocked us and was a revelation: people of the future will eventually stop using the servers that are in their own offices! So over time, from a heretic, I turned into a prophet. “
But for NetCentric, the cloud computing fiasco ended in complete collapse. O’Sullivan was unable to sell a single cloud application. The meager capacity of the equipment of that time and the market’s unpreparedness for changes also affected. The company collapsed and closed forever. “It was a dead end. We haven’t been able to deliver a whole bunch of cloud engineered applications to the marketplace, ”says O’Sullivan. The shock caused a change not only in the financial situation of the inventor, but also in his personality. He retired from IT affairs, went to film school, and even directed a non-profit documentary in support of post-war Iraqi reconstruction.
George Favaloro now (approx. – at the time of writing the original article) heads an environmental consulting firm in Waltham, Massachusetts. According to him, it is extremely surprising that the cloud, which he and O’Sullivan envisioned more than 20 years ago, has become a reality.
“Now I run a company that employs 15 people. We create and launch applications in a matter of hours. If we like them, we keep and develop them. If not, delete and forget. Everything is networked, our employees have round-the-clock access to the company’s files and software. And the costs are minimal. What can I say – the future has come, and almost everything that we predicted has come true! “
Cloud technology continues to evolve and improve. We at ISPsystem, in turn, try to delight users with new powerful functions and tools as often as possible. More recently, our VMmanager has acquired full support for the IaaS model. Don’t you know yet? Then you urgently come here. Cry!
