How the Election Could Affect Cloud Services

With yesterday's election behind us, I started wondering how the different presidential candidates might influence the adoption of cloud services. Not directly, mind you. And obviously this is pure speculation; no crystal balls here. But here goes.

The Case for Mitt Romney
Romney's economic policy, based on traditional republican views of tax cuts, with a slant toward larger cuts for the wealthy, believes that the trickle-down effect creates jobs. Additionally, tax incentives for businesses may have sparked economic growth, or so the theory goes. In short, more small businesses, more people employed, more wealth. And these things might spur capital spending. That said, there is a chance that such an influx in capital might actually slow the growth of cloud services. Besides the obvious advantages of uptime, scalability and elasticity, one of the financial benefits of the cloud is that you can reduce your capital expenditures in exchange for a predictable monthly operational spend. If there is more capital available then there is a chance that businesses would reverse course and start buying hardware again. On the other hand, there might be more businesses to adopt the cloud.

The Case for Barack Obama
One of cornerstones of Obama's 2008 campaign was to invest in renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions. While his achievements in this area have been arguably weak, and he has been widely criticized for the country's investments in failed green energy companies such as Solyndra. However, focus on new technologies and green energy might mean tax incentives to businesses that reduce their energy consumption and to those, such as cloud services providers, that invent and foster such energy reductions. That could be very positive for the adoption of cloud services. But, one could argue, that the growth of the businesses that demand those very services might be slower under the president's watch.

Would the selection of a president make a difference in the cloud? It's hard to say. In either case, cloud services are here to stay and their growth, I believe, will continue to be strong over the next four years.