Data storage, like other commodities such as bandwidth, electricity, or simple computer power, underpins nearly everything we do in information technology. Whether it’s a computer game, an international banking system, or a TV show, I can’t think of a single application that doesn’t depend on storing data. However, most of the companies that sell storage don’t like to think of storage as a commodity. That’s especially true in the more nascent market for cloud storage.
The market leaders – Amazon, Google, and Microsoft – all have their own ways of doing things and their own incompatible APIs that make it difficult or impossible to switch from one vendor to another.