Just a quick rant while I wait for Skype to (excruciatingly slowly) download.

Skype is acting up for me this afternoon.  After problems logging in and a subsequent application error I decided to reinstall it.  I should have checked the Skype status page first but that’s another matter (maybe the sign in screen could have flashed up that there are issues today?).

It isn’t just about Skype.  It’s the whole “Cloud” thing that bothers me.  The Internet is inherently a “best efforts” means of facilitating communication and yet I seem to see increasing attempts by hosted services to seduce businesses.  “Got a server? Ha ha ha! Money-wasting fools! You need MyMiracleCloudDoofer<tm>”.

So let’s say I have a business with hosted file storage, email, VoIP and whatever else.  Whatever the perceived benefits of not having the server(s) in-house it doesn’t look good if the Internet connection fails.  Suddenly the Internet has become a business-critical resource, even if I want to send an internal email to the next office or print off a standard document.

To quote the wisdom of Yoda: “shafted are you”.