Unlocking the Cloud Means Open Data

but since cloud computing isn't going away anytime soon

Maybe not, but I'm not seeing any trends that businesses are dropping their local infrastructure in favor of SaaS. Mostly because data loss and vendor lock-in are real concerns.

The author confirms it himself:

The only way to make the cloud -- and social media -- services a trustable home for data is to make this data open and "commandable" by the owner of this data. As long as the cloud service providers think they own user data, as long as the services and data formats are proprietary -- depriving users from the ability to switch from one service to another and from the cloud back to on-premises -- cloud services are neither safe nor trustworthy.

It is one thing being locked in to Microsoft, but still free to shape how your IT plumbing is set up. It is another to buy access to a black box, where you put stuff in and get stuff out, but where it is unclear how it really works, where you can lose data and where the vendor has a kill switch.

Even if data formats are open and data is "commandable", I don't think SaaS is completely safe. There is a cost associated with storing large amounts of data. There is a tipping point at which it becomes painful and costly to move data around. If you only have 25 text documents, it isn't a problem moving them around. If you have over 250 gigabytes of data, it becomes troublesome to move it to a new location. How long would it take, copying that around over the Internet?

it's time to start finding solutions instead of simply sounding alarm bells.

Solutions? Easy. If the above reasons put you off from SaaS, then don't jump on the band wagon. It's not like there are no other options than putting your infrastructure online in the hands of a third party.