For Cloud Computing, the Sky Is the Limit

By most standards, cloud computing is still in the early stages of adoption by midsize and larger organizations, but the pace is increasing as users look for additional cost savings and technology perks, such as scalability.

At a minimum, it appears that most midsize and large organizations are making some kind of investment in cloud computing, or in shared services at some level, that would eventually lead to their accessing programs, storage, and processing from service providers on virtualized or distributed systems.

By 2020, most people won’t do their work with software running on a general-purpose personal computer (PC), but through Internet-based applications like Google Docs and applications run from smart phones. In some ways, it’s almost as if the race is on for cloud adoption—for digital signal processing (DSP) vendors, users, and investors.

To learn where DSPs really fit into cloud computing, read the January 2011 “Special Report” column of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine.