Head Shots Count Triple

My friend wrote in a response to a Motley Fool sucker bait "Special Offer":

"The lies they tell!!   Microsoft has built an even larger data center than these "chosen" dudes with no name or mystery corporations (like the entity that naked short sold Bear Sterns) that built these data centers in the Pacific NW.  On the corporate level companies are using this regurgitated buzz word (cloud computing) to get the attention of the gubmint contacting officers.  In Chicago MS built a Gigantic DS because they won't have to cool it most of the year.   What idiot would give up their own processor, data storage and apps to some kind of monopoly?   Remember how Larry Ellison had the network computer that using the internet and java driven apps was going to replace the PC?  Best Buy and Circuit City didn't even put Larry's boxes on display."

Even if I did investing, which I don't and probably never will, these newsletter things have one big logical problem; if something is a sure thing with a big payoff, why would they be looking for suckers, I mean investors, to share in the profits? Seems to me, if they had some real opportunities they would keep it to themselves. I think that's what's going on right now with the equities markets and why they're keeping interest rates artificially low, to try to lure in another flock of gullible sheep to fleece, people who were not ruined in the last crash, who have a little cash earning less-than-inflation interest. As soon as they see that the bus is filled, they raise interest rates and the trip is over. I believe the Paulson emergency bailout was because they knew they had screwed the pooch and thought the game was really over for good so they were going to blow out the lamp, grab the cash and head for the holy land ahead of the lynch mob, but amazingly the chumps are getting back in the game.

"What idiot would give up their own processor, data storage and apps to some kind of monopoly?"

Most people don't have any important or valuable data and probably less than 1% do anything that actually uses processing power, (cadd, video processing, etc.). How often do you use anything beside the browser? and maybe email, which works better and easier in the browser, anyway. Outlook, hah! And the big bottleneck is and will remain bandwidth.  For most users, the cloud is perfect, as long as they realize everything is visible to anybody who cares to look. The trouble is, there isn't really any money in it, because there are too many players. If someone could somehow eliminate all their competition (and they would need to get the gubmint to do it) then yes, gold mine. I don't see it happening unless they can radically restrict the net (which is why they will try, and most likely succeed for other reasons, but restricting would kill the cloud model). The main target is big finance; if we can stop the brain-eating, the zombie will die. Always shoot at the head...