Cloud Math from Merrill Lynch
November 27, 2009
I read “Merrill Lynch: Cloud Computing Market Will Reach $160 Billion…Really?”. Crazy forecasts once were the core competency of 20 year old consultants at down market research firms and crazed MBAs looking for a big win. In my experience, the wacky stuff from the research folks at large, diversified investment firms have some math and some data to ingest to obtain maximum spreadsheet fever. I followed the links in the ReadWriteWeb.com article and reached three conclusions for myself, not you, gentle reader.
First, any thought that the financial meltdown trimmed the sales of the wacky MBAs is out the window. The forecast for cloud computing to hit $160 billion in 13 months is crazier than anything this addled goose has been able to concoct in recent memory. The data available are fuzzy, but I suppose it is possible to did through a college math book, find a method, and stuff in variables until a magic number plops out like an egg from a steroid stuffed squab. Will government oversight address wacky speculation about market size? Government what?
Second, one would think that companies engaged in cloud computing would might offer some anchor points. Last time I checked, none of thee outfits defines what cloud computing is in the hopes of making their products and services part of the next big thing—no matter what it turns out to be. I think the vendors throw gasoline on the fires of greed that burn in the analysts’ empty inner furnaces. They are, in my view, “hollow men” and hollow women.
Third, what about customers? Do customers know whether a particular computer is doing something in the machine itself or somewhere else? The customer who reads the number $160 billion is likely to ask, “So what?” Yes, exactly. So what. As devices connect and run local software, the notion of dividing the elements of computing into distinct components means zero to the user.
To sum up, Merrill Lynch’s $160 billion number for 2011 says to me, “We’re back. Let’s pump those stocks, baby. Churn is good.”
Stephen Arnold, November 27, 2009
I wish to disclose to the Securities & Exchange Commission, a top notch watchdog if there ever was one, that I was not paid to point out that wacky MBAs are making up numbers. Just like in the good old days. Bernie Madoff is probably doing some rough numbers right now.
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