(Obviously, I have no bias against the cloud. /s)
The “cloud people” are nothing more than the “mainframe people,” wearing different work attire. Instead of the blue suit, red tie and white shirt of the IBM/Amdahl/Fujitsu days, we now have beatniks and business casual hipsters of the Google era.
Different acronyms, same “your data is MY data” mentality. Instead of “DASD farm,” we now have “the cloud.” Instead of channel connects, RJE, Token Ring, SNA and so on, we now have the “Internet.”
My reaction: “Big whoop, kid. Tell me something I’ve not heard before. That means you need to do more than just change the nouns and buzzwords you’re using.”
There’s nothing I love more than getting kids all worked up when I listen to some of this stuff by saying: “Yea, OK kid, I’ve heard this before. Different buzzwords. I’m telling you that the generation before me did this already, and I came along to tell them that I was going to do something different with minicomputers and workstations. I’m going to tell you the same thing they told me: Show me something new.”