Music and gaming lead the way
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Cloud Computing
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How Dutch Higher Education can benefit from the Cloud
OVER THREE BILLION consumers will be using cloud computing services by 2018, according to a study.
Juniper Research has released "Cloud Computing - Consumer Markets: Strategies and Forecasts 2014-2018", which concludes that the limited storage (offered by mobile devices) will continue to drive the popularity of the cloud through media services such as Spotify.
The study concludes that by 2018, 3.6 billion people will be using cloud services, up from the estimate of 2.4 billion last year.
However, the lion's share of revenue is found in streaming services, as cloud data storage services are struggling to attract paying subscribers.
However, that there is still a huge gulf between revenue and profit, with many key players in the cloud market yet to turn a profit. Canonical recently closed its Ubuntu One cloud storage service, while Sugarsync has changed its business model after concluding that offering free storage was not sustainable.
Gaming represent a further boost with services such as Sony's Playstation now is offering PS4 users heritage titles from the PS1 and PS2 through the cloud. However, the report warns that high latency for cloud services threatens the performance of such online gaming, which could in turn affect revenues.
The full white paper includes research (undertaken with members of the cloud community, including representatives from Spotify, Amazon and Apple), as well as (looking at the effects of net neutrality prospects on the future of the cloud and the impact of new distribution technologies including WebRTC and network functions virtualisation.)
Vocabulary Bank
billion 十億
consumer 消費者
according to 根據
release 發佈
conclude 結論
limited (adj) 有限的
storage (n) 儲存
offer (v) 提供
drive (v) 驅使
popular (adj) 流行的
popularity (n) 流行性; 普及性
estimate (n) (v) 估計
the lion’s share of 最大的一份
revenue 收入
streaming service 串流服務
as 因為
struggle 掙扎
paying subscriber 付費訂閱者
a huge gulf 大鴻溝
profit 利潤
yet 尚未
turn a profit 轉成利潤
while 然而
sustain (v) 維持
sustainable (adj) 可維持的; 可永續的
represent (v) 代表
representatives (n) 代表
boost (n) 提升; 增加
heritage 遺留; 繼承
latency 潛伏; 潛伏因素
affect (v) 影響
white paper 白皮書
undertake 從事
community 社群
as well as 和
net 網路
neutrality prospect 中立的期望/前景
impact 衝擊
distribution technology 傳播科技
WebRTC = Web Real-Time-Communication
網頁即時通訊 (是一個支持網頁瀏覽器進行實時語音對話或視頻對話的技術，是谷歌2010年以6820萬美元收購Global IP Solutions公司而獲得的一項技術)
virtualisation/virtualization 虛擬化
