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Premise vs. Premises in the Cloud

Fern Halper By: Dr Fern Halper, Partner, Hurwitz & Associates
Published: 12th June 2009
Copyright Hurwitz & Associates © 2009
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With all of the research I've been doing for our latest book: Cloud Computing for Dummies, I've noticed something very disturbing. Maybe it's because I come from a telecommunications background, that this bothers me so much—but has anyone else noticed that people are misusing the word premise when describing aspects of the cloud? I keep reading articles and blogs where an author refers to an "on premise" solution. The proper term is premises as in 'on your premises' (see below).

From Dictionary.com

Premise: a proposition supporting or helping to support a conclusion.

Premises: a tract of land including its buildings.

Even vendors in the space are making this mistake. It's appalling. I could list dozens of examples of this error. Has the definition of the word changed and I'm missing something? Or, has the word been used incorrectly so many times that it doesn't matter anymore?

Reader Comments

Posted: 22nd June 2009 | By Cheryl :

I agree, I spent the better part of 3 months wading through a website for a technology company and editing it to say on-premises. The problem is that "on-premise" has been used over a number of years and no one has said anything about it, so people who are reading and learning about it(datacloud in this case)and various other applications that are on premises don't realize that to say it's on-premise is wrong because that is the vernacular that everyone else is using. Most will assume that this is correct and use it as it was presented to them. No one has really gone out to correct this word in the software industry.

Posted: 23rd June 2009 | By Fern Halper :

Hi Cheryl:

Was the vendor concerned that it had made this mistake? It must have been, or else it would not have paid to have you fix it! I'll always make a point of stressing the "on premises" when speaking to a vendor

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