Panel of ‘a selected few’ formed to advise Congress on cloud computing
According to Federal Times, a group of IT companies have formed an advisory group to consult with Congress and agencies on cloud computing and other IT issues. Meritalk announced the formation of the Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group at the Meritalk Cloud Computing Brainstorm on Jan. 16.
The advisory group is made up of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Meritalk, and EMC.
The problem with this kind of panel is that they only represent 3 or 4 companies, and thus only 3 or 4 points of view which are aligned with the agendas of each of their respective companies. Smaller cloud companies, which make up a lot of the cloud computing marketplace, are not represented. Thus, lawmakers are only getting one part of the story.
The problem with cloud computing is that it’s a pretty technical concept, and thus laymen only understand what’s spun to them. If there is too much influence from only a few select companies to those who make laws or policy, then those laws or policies will be skewed toward the objectives of those companies. We should not allow that to happen.
