Cloud Computing Makes Americans Anxious

Storing files on remote servers whether those files are e-mails or medical records in a bad idea. The security the protects the data may be poor. That risks personal records, financial information, and business files being pirated by hackers for mischievous or criminal purposes.

The hack into Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) and later break-ins to government and business website has almost certainly hurt the public’s anxiety about server stored information.

A new poll from Harris shows how much personals security concerns are slowing the adoption of the use of cloud computing compared to traditional methods of keeping records on PC drives.

The Harris poll was conducted online between March 1 and 8 among 2,320 adults.  The most significant results of the survey were:

One of the main issues people have with cloud computing is security. Four in five online Americans (81%) agree that they are concerned about securing the service. Only one-quarter (25%) say they would trust this service for files with personal information, while three in five (62%) would not. Over half (58%) disagree with the concept that files stored online are safer than files stored locally on a hard drive and 57% of online Americans would not trust that their files are safe online.

Almost two-third of those surveyed believed that it would be easier for them to use server-side computing solutions for the flexibility it allows to access files from anywhere that has a PC. But, that hardly matters when what people might do is so different from what they do.

The news is good for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and bad for Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). Much of the future of Microsoft’s major product, Windows 7, relies on the need of people and enterprises to use computers are self-contained devices with reasonable digital security. Google’s is one of the world’s leaders in promoting cloud computing for consumers and business. Google GMail and all of its enterprise applications run on remote servers maintained by Google.

And , Google cannot improve the public’s perception of the security of the servers employed in cloud computing when its own servers are broken into by hackers whose identity still has not been discovered.

Douglas A. McIntyre