The Hindu Business Line : Information selling to hot up

In a matter of selling the invisible, information is set to become a commodity online. Information selling is going to be a massive service soon with `storage as a service' models arising this decade, predicts Mr Joesph M. Tucci, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO, EMC Corporation, while speaking on `how India can emerge as the information and knowledge capital of the world', an event hosted by Nasscom in the city.

Online Storage

Storage is already being offered online as a service. Photo-hosting websites, home video hosting sites and even sites for hosting your contacts & spreadsheets have on offer `premium' services for a price. Now, according to Mr Tucci, this will diversify into other domains and gain in traction as companies realise the value of storing information online.

"Information banks will emerge. Sites such as Amazon are already selling information. Soon telecom companies will also begin offering this service for a price," said Mr Tucci.

According to a study done by the University of California at Berkeley, information is growing by more than 60-70 per cent annually. Another major trend, according to Mr Tucci, is that a lot of personal devices such as laptops, PDAs will change into access devices. Storage on them would become insignificant, once data is available online. Soon mp3 players and portable media players will connect directly to an online site and stream music directly.