Apple co-founder Wozniak airs cloud computing concerns

Dark clouds

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has laid bare his fears about moving data to the cloud, claiming it could lead to "horrible problems" in the future.

Wozniak was reportedly the star turn during Mike Daisy's one-man show in Washington, United States, called The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.

Wozniak is often credited with driving Apple's early success in the computer market, having founded the company with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne in the 1970s.

As reported by Agence France-Presse, during a post-show Q&A session, Wozniak said he found the concept of moving data from physical, on-premise servers into the cloud worrying.

"I really worry about everything going to the cloud...I think it's going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years," he said.

He also raised concerns about the lack of control, he claimed, users have over the data they store in the cloud.

"With the cloud, you don't own anything. You already signed it away," he said.

"I want to feel that I own things. A lot of people feel, 'Oh, everything is really on my computer,' but I say the more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we're going to have control over it," added Wozniak.

Caroline Donnelly is the news and analysis editor of IT Pro and its sister site Cloud Pro, and covers general news, as well as the storage, security, public sector, cloud and Microsoft beats. Caroline has been a member of the IT Pro/Cloud Pro team since March 2012, and has previously worked as a reporter at several B2B publications, including UK channel magazine CRN, and as features writer for local weekly newspaper, The Slough and Windsor Observer. She studied Medical Biochemistry at the University of Leicester and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism at PMA Training in 2006.