With Apple’s release of MacBook Air, has cloud computing finally gone mainstream?

Cloud computing, or where computing is moved from personal computers to an application server or a collection (”cloud”) of computing resources, is a hot topic these days. Amazon made waves with its EC2 and S3 services, and Google’s been in the news this past year with its Google File System.

But up until the MacBook Air, the closest “cloud-like” devices available to the non-technical user were the Asus eeePC and gOS. And despite the tremendous progress that has been made on Linux distros in the areas of user interface design and technical ease of use, those devices are still on the fringes of comfort level for the average Joe.

Let’s be clear that none of these devices (including the MacBook Air) are true cloud machines. Those are more akin to the old style client/server model where absolutely everything is served up over the network (including the operating system).

But the MacBook Air accomplishes something where eeePC, gOS, and other cloud-based, network-based, or hardware companies have failed. By removing the optical drive and putting more focus on wireless connectivity, Apple is slowly but surely on the path to challenge end-users’ conceptions and comfort level of what the computing experience should be.

No optical drive? No problem. Connect to unused resources on your network and load your apps from a shared optical drive. No hardline network? No problem. 802.11n gives lightning fast speed. Need backups? We’re covered there, too. Automate and streamline with built-in network backups through Time Capsule.

Most average users won’t call it cloud computing, but that’s really what it is. It’s tapping into resources that are already available elsewhere on a network, and redirecting them to suit whatever task is at hand.

Give Apple credit for once again bringing something mainstream that, much like music and video, was once solely relegated to the technologically inclined. We’re not quite at true cloud computing yet, but the MacBook Air is the first step to bringing the flexibility and power of cloud computing to the mainstream.