Apple Racing Ahead With Cloud Computing Plans?

It has been a short while since the divorce happened between Apple and Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Even though there were murmurs about the split happening due to conflicts of interests between the two companies, there were no signs about a head on fight between the two companies. Last month, Rich Miller of Data Center Knowledge pointed us to a top secret data center project of Apple

 Apple is known for keeping its new technology secret prior to launch.
So it’s not surprising that the company has had little to say about its
$1 billion data center project in North Carolina. The new iData Center
may not get the fanfare of a MacWorld keynote when it launches, but one
thing is clear: Apple plans to move quickly to the construction phase.

Ever since Apple announced about their Office SaaS Suite during the last Macworld, there were questions raised about their moves.

 At the Macworld conference in San Francisco, Apple unveiled its plans to allow users to create and edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations online, and store them on central servers that can then be accessed from any computer.

Well, Cloud Computing strategy is the natural next step for Apple with the runaway success of iPhone. As it is usually the case with Apple, they are tight lipped about their Cloud plans. The information about the new datacenter, at least, confirms us that Apple is serious about the Clouds. But, we may have to wait a bit longer before we know anything worthwhile on this topic.

CultofMac has an interesting interview with Rich Miller on the topic

 One of the leading theories about the size of the NC project is that Apple is planning future cloud computing services that will require lots of data center storage. Cloud computing is a hot trend, and I’d be surprised if Apple isn’t thinking hard – and thinking differently – about cloud computing. Many cloud enthusiasts say that cloud computing will eliminate the need for data centers. In reality, the only thing will change is the owner of the building. All the applications and data that are moving into the cloud will live on servers in brick-and-mortar data centers. The companies that are building the biggest data centers tend to also have the biggest cloud ambitions