Public vs. Private Cloud Computing: A Decade Long Look

 

Rob Ederle in his article in Datamation.com entitled 2010: The Year and Decade of the Cloud has an interesting theory on the circuitous nature of the computing populace and the nature of the industries that feed into this arena.  Enderle surmises that we have come, or will be coming, full circle in our approach to computing in this second decade of the 21st century. He notes that we started this journey with huge centralized computing and dumb terminals, and now with the surge in growth of Smartphones and Smartbooks, we may be headed back to that original configuration, but this time in “The Cloud”. Enderle’s advice for companies to survive is to change their approach of how they view the market. Larger vendors ensconced in the large systems approach may have a leg-up on their competitors who were more user-focused; however, these larger vendors must accommodate these user’s demands or risk alienating them. Similarly, the more user-centric vendors must adopt the large centralized systems approach or be left behind. Enderle foresees the most likely way these vendors, large systems vendors and more user-centric vendors, will survive and evolve is through partnerships. He predicts Google as a likely survivor if this decade of cloud computing pans out the way he envisions it.

Ederle gives us a quick definition of what he calls Services-Based Computing, otherwise known as “The Cloud”. He takes a retro look back and states that is what IBM started. I’m not sure if I buy a direct correlation to what was the IBM leasing/services model and what the new cloud computing will become, but I at least understand where he is going with this perspective.

Ederle’s article makes an interesting observation and distinguishes between “Public” cloud computing and “Private” cloud computing. It is easy to guess, and Ederle’s article is quite clear, that the Public brand of cloud computing would be lower cost while the Private brand will be more concerned with security, but at a higher cost.  As a neophyte when it comes to cloud computing (well I guess most of us are neophytes at this point in time), I am not sure I can make the distinction between Private cloud computing and a Managed Hosting arrangement, or is this a distinction without a difference? Further in his article there is a discussion how the enterprise vendor (i.e. the large centralized systems vendor) must meld its strategic efficiencies with the more user-centric vendors who have the knack for responding to the needs of the line managers who have become the new decision makers when it comes to technology spending.

Ederle’s solution, or at least his prediction, is that companies will need to form partnerships with each partner having the right mix of Public and Private components. He concludes his article by stating that the companies that exit the new decade of cloud computing will not resemble anything like they were when they entered this new decade.

 

Year In Review: Another Top Ten List

 

Did somebody famous ever say “We won’t know where we are going until we know where we’ve been”? I did a quick Google search and could not come up with this quote being attributed to any person. If somebody did say this, then I’m borrowing the line for this posting. If not, then feel free to use it (but mention my name please). As my regular readers can imagine, I’ve been gone for about 3 weeks simply due to a very busy fourth quarter/year-end close. While scanning the internet recently for interesting and important information to bring to your attention, I stumbled upon a very interesting and thought provoking article in Internetnews.com by Kenneth Corbin entitled The 10 Most Important Social and Digital Media Developments of 2009. As I have stated in the past, I am a bit of a History Buff (What’s a Buff? See definition 2; enthusiastic, yes; knowledgeable, maybe). So I like to know the background of why things are as they are; and so I think it is nice to know what has happened in the past relating to technology in order to get a better understanding of where we may end up in the technological future. Corbin’s article is a gem. It informed me more fully of things I might have heard but should know more about. It reminded me of things that happened and how society dealt with it. It made me laugh (e.g. someone threatened to kill their cat if Miley Cyrus did not reinstate her Twitter account – really). And it made me wonder about the future. Here is a brief synopsis of Corbin’s Top Ten List peppered with my editorial comments. I hope I can do it justice:

#10.       Amazon.com’s Kindle will change the world: I read somewhere that the Invention that changed the world was the printing press. Well move over Gutenberg, the Kindle has arrived. In 2009 Amazon sold more digital books than printed editions. This e-reader will change the world. For an interesting take and a more in-depth analysis see Don Reisinger article entitled The Most Important Tech Product Is the Kindle, Not the iPhone.

#9.          Craigslist Killer: Some med student solicited an escort off of Craigslist and murdered her. The story was sensationalized due to the use of this new technology. As Corbin correctly points out, this story would have not garnered the attention that it did if the escort was solicited from the many personal ads or from the too numerous to mention yellow page advertisements.

#8.          Social Networking Sites Made Money: Facebook and Twitter, both a free service to their customer base of MILLIONS (yes I’m shouting MILLIONS) managed to figure out a way to make money. Facebook does it through advertising and the sale of virtual products; and Twitter did it by licensing the ability to add real-time content to Search Engines Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.

#7.          Social Media in the Government: Is this a good thing? I don’t know. The Obama Administration seems to think so. They’ve done weekly addresses to the nation on YouTube and hosted online town hall meetings. There are numerous government websites and blogs.

#6.          The slow death of the Newspaper: Is this really happening? Are we really getting more (or most) of our news from the internet? What will the new business model turn out to be? Dare I say, do we need yet another industry bailed out?

#5.          Miley Cyrus deletes Twitter account: I honestly do not understand this phenomenon. Apparently there are millions of fans of all sorts of celebrities and Star Athletes that are interested in knowing and these Celebs/Sport Stars are interested in tweeting what they may be doing most hours of the day. Is this the downfall of our society? Well, it is at least another reason for it. Oh how I long for much calmer days and “Home Tweet Home”.

#4.          Social Web becomes target for hackers: Why do they do it? I don’t know. Some do it for the thrill of the “hack” and some are out to steal our identity. We put too much personal stuff on these social sites. Regulators and privacy advocates have fertile ground for their causes and activities.

#3.          The Twitter revolution in Iran: In June of the last year as Iranian authorities were cracking down on protestors, these same protestors began to twitter their cause, and when the foreign correspondents were thrown out, became the only source of hard data on what was really happening in the country. Corbin reports that the US State Department convinced the people at Twitter to postpone a planned power outage for scheduled maintenance just so they would keep the twitter lines of communication open.

#2.          The growing sense of urgency about information:  It seems that everything is about immediacy. We’ve got to have it real-time. 

And the #1 important issue that materialized last year relating to Social and Digital Media was VIDEO: The web is free and on-demand. How does one derive a business model out of that? TV Everywhere offers paying subscribers the option to watch content on the web. Hulu pulls content from sites, and its owner News Corp is thinking about making it a paid site. So is free TV over the air waves supported by its advertising (i.e. commercials) a thing of the past?

 

 

Droid: Can Verizon Topple AT&T with the Newest Smartphone by Motorola

 

 

Well, by now you probably have seen the commercials. The first commercial began with a children’s lullaby playing in the background as a series of “i don’t” phrases appeared on a whiteboard. This was just enough to catch one’s curiosity when the final “i don’t” phrase dissolves into an eerie Sci-Fi fuzzy screen and a voice is heard announcing the coming of Droid. As a fighter pilot wannabe, the second commercial was much more to my liking. A squadron of what look to be 2nd or 3rd generation stealth fighter-bombers is flying in formation when the order is given to release the pods. A shower of what appears to be meteors fills the skies. Upon impact the locals gather around each crater and the pods begin to open when the background voice announces the arrival of Droid.

Last Friday Verizon’s iPhone killer went on sale. Motorola’s Droid has a mobile open source platform on the Verizon network. Michelle Megna reports for Internetnews.com on the impending battle between Apple, the maker of the iPhone, and the PC community in her article entitled Droid First Step in iPhone Fade Away?. Megna quotes Tim McLaughlin, CEO of Siteworx, a mobile app and Web development company,

"History shows that unlike Apple, PCs gathered the ecosystem of profitable companies, such as Dell and IBM, thanks to its open technology. Apple, however, only develops systems that benefit itself. It all comes down to economics, and the only company interested in making the iPhone ubiquitous is Apple. On the other hand, you have Google, Verizon, Motorola, all these big companies together, the cumulative market value is huge. You put all of those resources together, and even though it's less effective because it's not centralized like Apple, it will still have a huge impact"

Brad Reed and Matt Hamblen have done their due diligence research on the product and have come up with a nifty review in their article for Computerworld entitled Four reasons to buy (and one reason to avoid) the Droid. I’ll try to provide a brief summary of their five points:

1.       Droid is the strongest device on the Verizon Network with the following three characteristics:

a.       Mobile browsing capability

b.      A very good voice recognition functionality

c.       The largest 3G data coverage network of Verizon

2.       The Google connection: The open platform will stimulate development of new apps and allow users to switch to new carriers while maintaining the same device.

3.       Ability to run two applications simultaneously: iPhone can’t do it. Once Droid develops the appropriate security features, then Blackberry will need to pay attention as Droid could become the device of choice for the enterprise user.

4.       Connection to the internet through Wi-Fi: Also use of the same processor as the iPhone will allow a fast and smooth browsing experience.

5.       AND the one reason to avoid this device is the keyboard: Droid has the touchscreen capability, but in order to get that feel of hitting the keys, they have also developed a slide-out keyboard. This feature allows enough room for a larger display screen. Reed and Hamblen report that users do not get the same feel with this shallow keyboard.

 

IBM and SAP vs. Oracle and Sun: Let the Speculation Begin

 

In light of the recent mega-acquisition of Sun Microsystems by IT titan Oracle, the rumor mill has begun to turn. As a follow-on to my posting in this Blog last week dated May 11, 2009 entitled Oracle Purchase of Sun: “A Game Changer”, I have found two article’s that my readers may find of interest. Here is a brief synopsis of each:

An IBM marriage to SAP:

CNNMoney.com posted a Fortune Magazine article from their Tech Daily by senior writer Jon Fortt entitled IBM-SAP combo not in the cards – exec. In it CEO Sam Palmisano’s spokesman lays out why such an acquisition is unlikely. I cannot help my flair for the melodramatic and immediately what comes to mind is that old line from some film noir movie “Your lips say no, but your eyes says yes”. Some of the points for such a purchase are:

  • IBM’s Websphere, DB2, and Cognos provide the foundation for SAP’s business apps.
  • IBM is one of the few (Google and Microsoft notwithstanding) that could afford the $50 billion  SAP market value plus a premium.
  • Such a combination could in essence provide all the software an enterprise could need.
  • Others (e.g. Oracle / Sun) have embarked on this portfolio strategy.

IBM’s retort to the above is a recognition to tread softly as not to upset their existing partnership relations. I’m afraid I’m reminded of yet another famous line (with apologies to the Shakespearean aficionados – if I may be allowed a bit of poetic license) Methinks he doth protest too much. { The original line "The lady doth protest too much, methinks” is from Hamlet Act III Scene II. Queen Gertrude, not realizing that Hamlet has staged this play within a play to trap her and her husband whom Hamlet suspects of having murdered his father, speaks these famous words to her son, Prince Hamlet.  See answers at yahoo.com --- but I digress}

Oracle could play the old IBM trick: 

To continue on with the “speculation” theme of this posting, Rob Enderle examines  the aforementioned mega-acquisition and comes up with an interesting strategy in his article in InternetNews.com How Oracle-Sun Could Use Google to Become the New IBM. Apparently, back in the 60’s when IBM was king, IBM locked in its customer base by bundling software with the lease / purchase of its hardware. Enderle posits that Oracle stand this strategy on its head and proposes that Oracle bundle its software and services with the Sun Hardware and this time it is the hardware that is the free commodity (or close to it) and not the software as was the case for IBM in the 60’s. Enderle has an analysis on UNIX and Linux and how Java is “a bone fide platform in its own right”, but I will have to leave it to you to grasp the nuance, since I cannot. The missing element to this strategy is the desktop component. Enderle closes the loop in this strategy with an Oracle – Google alliance (if this is possible) and has Oracle emerge as the new IBM. Such an alliance seems improbable, but worth the mention.

 

 

What's Next for ERP in 2008

As customers demand more from Web 2.0 applications and software vendors scramble to meet these demands, we should expect to see more mergers.  The assembling of such technologies as “instant messaging, Web conferencing, email, desk phone, mobile phone, blogs, and RSS feeds” has proven to be an overwhelming task.  A way to provide such technologies without losing some of the functionality which makes these technologies so appealing is to merge or purchase smaller niche companies that have the new emerging technologies already in hand.  Larry Barrett in his article in InternetNews.com reports on the most likely scenarios to come in 2008.  The companies to watch will be those with established expertise in data management, business intelligence and analytics and security.  The candidates include Informatica and i2 Technologies.  Regarding this anticipated consolidation, Barrett cites HP’s CEO Mark Hurd:

“I think you'll see continued industry consolidation and see more and more vertical integration.  It could accelerate in the next year or two if the right alignment of players were to occur ... I think potential M&A opportunities will rise to the top.”

And what about the big players in the ERP arena?  Is a purchase of SAP a possibility?  SAP’s co-founder and chief of its supervisory board left the door open a bit when he responded to such an occurrence by the likes of IBM, Microsoft, or Google stating, “If shareholders think that a combination, and not independence, is better, then it will happen.”  Barrett points out some of the key factors involved in any proposed merger with the world’s largest business applications vendor: 

  • SAP’s market cap is $63 billion.  Microsoft would be an expected suitor.  It has the money.  The antitrust issues would require Herculean efforts and thus make such a combination unlikely.

  • Google could afford it, but the corporate cultures are so divergent that this is a limiting factor.

  • IBM seems to be the one.

Barrett cites Peter Goldmacher, an analyst with Cowen & Co.

“As big as SAP is, they're becoming a niche vendor and I think Oracle is hurting them and hurting IBM.  Both of these guys need each other.  And there's not a better fit. You'd have the No. 1 applications company and No. 2 database company competing against Oracle, which is No. 2 in applications and No. 1 in database.”

Does anyone really think that Oracle’s Larry Ellison will just sit idle and watch this all happen?  To read an interesting article and get a sneak peek at what other types of companies have caught the eye of Venture Capitalists as well as the large enterprise software companies check out Larry Barrett’s article in InternetNews.com.