This morning I read a tweet from Marc Davis that quoted a profound statement from Johannes Ernst:

@Johannes_Ernst: “We do not know yet what will be the ‘VisiCalc’ of Personal Clouds” #IIW #pcloud #personaldata.

I think Johannes hit the nail squarely on its head.  The concept of Personal Clouds is very intriguing, but still in the hobbyist stage.

If I recall correctly, the first time I saw Visicalc demonstrated was on a TRS- 80 machine.  It was crude by today’s standards, but revolutionary in what we could do with it.

Wikipedia quotes Thomas Hormby, who stated: 

VisiCalc … is often considered the application that turned the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a serious business tool.

What will be the application that turns Personal Clouds into a serious tool and triggers rapid growth? I would hope that universally accepted, personally managed Identity credentials and mobile payments will be early winners, but who knows?