We operate on similar principles almost all the time - web apps to servers. Document management systems work in similar ways to this. There is a huge amount of value on pushing things from distributed to centralised, as far as information flow goes.
Yes, but if you buried half your money in your backyard and put the other half in the bank, you couldn't lose more than half of it in a single attack.
How does this translate to data? Redundancy? That's built into cloud computing, generally. And yet, the backyard concept applies - most people lose their own computers and files, making splitting it stronger in one way and weaker in another.
Keep in mind that when you talk about data as value, it only works two ways - to keep people out, and to make sure you have access to it. Invariably the two trade off, to some degree, but the push forward is to increase personal access because there isn't a lot of trade off for security. It is always in relative terms - we can lock down data so no one can get it, but people want laptops, we need backups... etc. Others have attack points then, or it just happens by accident.
The bigger concern is in not being able to gain access. That's the main concern right now, I think. But reliability and so forth have made significant gains. I know I trust my web server more than my local computer network (at home, that is.)
I agree. We'd never have a near-monopoly by any one software company here.
Heh, that'd never happen!
However, chances are in this case you'd have the option of going more local. It depends on how far it goes. Once you start pushing computational power onto farms, then the desktop really will be a thin client, and the monopoly issue would be a big issue (cost by cycle, egad). That is, of course, assuming that the industry doesn't trend towards natural monopolies... too early to tell, but certainly not impossible.