"If computers of the kind I have advocated become the computers of the future, then computing may someday be organized as a public utility just as the telephone system is a public utility... The computer utility could become the basis of a new and important industry."
— John McCarthy (speaking at the MIT Centennial in 1961)
It's been pointed out that McCarthy used the term "utility" rather than "cloud", but many of us would argue they are one and the same. Indeed Wikipedia defines it as:
ReplyDelete"Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network (typically the Internet)."
In any case, can anyone think of anyone more deserving of the honour of the title "father of cloud computing" than McCarthy? I certainly can't.