I was seated at a business dinner last night in Silicon Valley. Around the table at the Four Seasons Hotel sat several technology luminaries representing software companies, government and well-known internet darlings that had made many of their investors and employees quite wealthy. I was privileged to be among them, and the erudite conversion was even more enjoyable than the gourmet meal and excellent Napa Valley wines being served.

Shortly after my grilled sea bass arrived, the topic turned to cloud computing. Several of the guests were intimately involved in this emerging information technology concept. The technologists at the table were able to dive much deeper than the normal platitudes of expected benefits, and we discussed the underlying technologies necessary to actually begin to achieve the cost savings and future capabilities touted at seminars and conferences. Concepts and architectures including thin clients, virtualization and remote storage and retrieval (as well as the nagging security issues) were put forth to be debated. This engaging roundtable discussion took us through the main course, dessert and followed us into the lounge for after-dinner drinks.

During the dialogue, one of the technology industry representatives pointed out that government technology leaders in Washington had been pushing government toward a “cloud environment” and were confronted with push-back from many senior chief information officers. These CIOs were concerned about outsourcing control of sensitive data about American citizens to companies that may end up storing the data virtually anywhere in the world. He mentioned the fact that President Obama’s new national CIO felt it shouldn’t be allowed to be a stumbling block to achieving the projected cost savings and benefits of ubiquitous cloud data services.

After hearing this rather glib dismissal of a recognized security issue, I immediately turned to see the looks on the faces of the government technology executives, and was rewarded to see their obvious expressions of concern with this stance. I could immediately tell exactly the types of people who were “pushing back” on the Washington, D.C.-based visionaries. One looked up from his pot du crème’ and slowly shook his head. “I heard that opinion, too,” he said, “but I am not sure it represents all of us in government.” His carefully chosen words were obviously an understatement.