Leveraging the Different Types of “Clouds” for Development

On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone to a buzzing crowd of Apple enthusiasts. It was the mark of a paradigm shift, because it ushered in the age of apps. But a much larger paradigm shift had occurred years before in 1996. At the headquarters of Compaq Computer, two executives, George Falvaro and Sean O’Sullivan, drafted a term called “cloud computing,” according to research conducted by Technology Review. Years later, technology companies like Oracle and IBM fought for sole ownership of “cloud computing.” Still, many speculate the name was coined in 2006 by Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt.

Though the origin of cloud computing’s coinage is as nebulous as its name suggests, the service is not exactly pie in the sky. What is the cloud? The cloud is a solid computer — hundreds of them hum in large data centers. These servers provide internet users access to cavernous storage space. Software services like Google Docs, DropBox, and Salesforce leverage their business by taking advantage of the cloud. Further, services like Amazon’s AWS have cornered the market in cloud computing, with AWS setting itself up as the biggest cloud host. Microsoft’s Azure is a close second.

However, with the rise of smartphones, thanks to Steve Jobs, mobile devices have dominated the consumer market. According to Statista, mobile phones…