Cloud Computing is hinting at a future in which we won’t
compute on local computers, but on centralized facilities
operated by third-party compute and storage utilities. We sure
won’t miss the shrink-wrapped software to unwrap and install.
Needless to say, this is not a new idea. In fact, back in 1961,
computing pioneer John McCarthy predicted that
“computation may someday be organized as a public utility”
and went on to speculate how this might occur.