Microsoft released a dubious press release today to promote its entry into cloud computing. The company makes the sketchy claim that will create 14 million jobs worldwide by 2015. Considering the fact that cloud computing is a consolidation technology that is used to fire IT staffs and centralize their efforts into a larger framework run by someone else, you have to assume at least 28 million jobs will be lost in the process. And that only assumes a two-to-one downsizing ratio. It could be worse.

So, who is Microsoft kidding? Who believes this rubbish?

Let's start with the false premise that, somehow, the ever-so-efficient cloud computing is going to create jobs rather than replace jobs. Does this make any sense to anyone? Cloud computing is like a merger between two companies, only it's a merger between hundreds of corporate IT departments. Whenever a merge happens, the redundancies are eliminated. So what is Microsoft trying to pull here? Is it trying to make itself look like some good-guy job creator?

It gets a little annoying when so-called "job creation" numbers fail to take into account the fact that many jobs are replaced and destroyed. There is no net gain in jobs with cloud computing. Zero. Why would there be? It's a methodology designed to eliminate jobs using the efficiencies of centralized services.

What few jobs that are created within the centralized services will be mostly offshore, according Microsoft. In this feature story, the company admits that China and India will account for more than half of the new jobs. The other half will be scattered around the world and, from the looks of it, will essentially kill all but a few American IT jobs. The United States will end up with a mere 66 percent increase in cloud-based growth from 2012 to 2015, according to a crazy growth map. In other words, in the next three to four years, cloud computing employment in the United States will not even double, while in Mexico, it will increase by 382 percent. What does that tell you?

Should we expect all the data processing functions of corporate America to be off-shored the same way manufacturing has been? It appears so. The irony is that Microsoft is essentially rubbing our noses in it with the roll-out of this research. If I were the marketing director at Microsoft, I would have kept this quiet instead of bragging about it. Seriously, what is the company thinking?

And does anyone at Microsoft recognize that this whole cloud trend is a national security issue? Entire corporate back offices of entire US corporations will be sitting on servers in India, China, and Brazil. Does this sound, in any way, safe? I'd advise you, loyal reader, to write a letter of concern to your congressperson and attach a copy of this column.

The unfortunate fact is that American businesses have long since given up on having real and total control of their own operations. While many tightly control employee work hours, they have meanwhile outsourced everything they can. Now this. It's shameful.