Software as a Service: More Complexity
August 26, 2009
Short honk: A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to “Software as a Service Not Yet Ready”. We goslings like SaaS. Sure, there some Amazon type bugs in the woodwork, but that’s to be expected. A much stronger anti SaaS stance is expressed by Haseet Sanghrajka, a senior manager at ST Consulting. He asserted:
There are moves to develop standards in data hosting, which is good, but until the SaaS model has gone through a few iterations the market will not clearly understand the pitfalls, or work out just how to address them. From bandwidth redundancy to the strengths of service providers, organisations cannot afford to underestimate the complexity of this model.
I am popping this into the Beyond Search quotation file drawer.
Stephen Arnold, August 26, 2009
Cloud Price War
August 23, 2009
Short honk: If you have been keeping an eye on the fees assessed for cloud computing, you will want to take a look at “Amazon Lowers Fees on Reserved EC2 Instances”. The article contains a useful table of prices. What was missing were the pre discount prices, but the information is useful. When I read the write up, I thought, “Amazon is buying market share.” I wonder if Amazon will report revenues for its cloud product line. Probably not. Clarity in financial reporting is not part of the Amazon game plan in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, August 22, 2009
The Real World and the Clouds: Just Like the Weather. Unpredictable.
August 21, 2009
ITNews has been a consistently interesting source of information technology information. I have concluded that the flies in Canberra motivate Australians to stay inside and work hard to understand software and systems. “Stress Tests Rain on Amazon’s Cloud” is a thought provoking article. The main idea appears in the subhead for the story: “Availability an Issue for Amazon EC2, Google App Engine, and Microsoft Azure.” [Editor’s note: We edited App Logic to App Engine since the story refers to that Google service.] That is correct: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft face some challenges if the information in the ITNews story is spot on. The most telling comment in the write up was:
Liu said all three services lack the monitoring tools large organizations require to check on whether the platform is meeting service level agreements. “None of the platforms have the kind of monitoring required to have a reasonable conversation about performance,” she said. “They provide some level of monitoring, but what little there is caters for developers, not business users. And while Amazon provides a dashboard of how much it is costing you so far, for example, there is nothing in terms of forecasts about what it will cost you in the future.”
Hmm. No SLA monitoring tools. Hmmm. Costs are fuzzy. Hmmmm. Not exactly what the marketers wanted me to believe. Promising just no promises.
Stephen Arnold, August 21, 2009
Google Knol Gets an F
August 12, 2009
TechCrunch published “Poor Google Knol Has Gone from a Wikipedia Killer to a Craigslist Wannabe” by Erick Schonfeld and elicited a happy quack from the addled goose. Mr. Schonfeld points out that Google’s Knol (a unit of knowledge in Google speak) is a traffic magnet without much oomph. For me the killer statement in the write up was:
Sadly, Knol just never panned out. Google should just end its misery, just like it did when it killed other under-performing projects such as Lively and Google Notebooks. Knol will never come close to Wikipedia. It can’t even cut it as a classifieds listing site.
I agree with Mr. Schonfeld’s argument, but there were several thoughts that the write up triggered here in the pond choked with rain water and mine run off.
- Perhaps Google allowed resources to flow away from Knol because it was a publishing play on the surface but a test of a method for obtaining content from experts. Authoritative information from an expert is just the Googzilla food that smart algorithms feed upon. Publishing is a hot potato for the Google. Knol is better left as a sideline lest it draw enemy assaults.
- Google has a number of similar tests / betas underway. Are these products, or are they trials of key components of a less visible, more potent system? The terms of service and the various developer tools make it possible to shape Knol in interesting ways. Which of these “ways” is the one that Google wishes to encourage?
- What happens if Google, not eager users, hook together multiple Google beta services into one cohesive product that delivers and monetizes information? That is a question to which I don’t have an answer.
Google may have another Web Accelerator on its hands. On the other hand, Knol may be a cog in a larger machine. TechCrunch seems to be leaning toward giving the Knol service an F and may toss in a week in the Web detention hall based on performance to date.
Stephen Arnold, August 12, 2009
The Turtle Moves Forward a Little
August 12, 2009
The blogosphere lit up when Google announced its Caffeine project was available for the hoi polloi. I looked at the prattlings and decided to point you to PCWorld’s FAQ for this giant turtle step for the Google. Read “Google Caffeine FAQ: Your Questions Answered” and give the turtle step a spin at http://www2.sandbox.google.com. The Google has more tricks up its sleeve. No point in getting ahead of the azure chip consultants, however. The applications of sparse tables to the programmable search engine are not as easy to grasp as a sandbox open to anyone with a browser. To see content, not a results list, navigate to the Sand box and run a query for Beyond Search. Click on Microsoft. Answers without a results list. Nifty. The function has been available from big Google for a while, but it is one example of Google’s cleverness.
Stephen Arnold, August 12, 2009
Google Wave: Perturbing the Data Pond
August 11, 2009
I read Anil Dash’s “What Works: The Web Way vs. The Wave Way” and scanned some of the comments about his write up. I agree with most of the information in the write up. The one point I would add is that Wave is not one thing. Wave is a plastic bag made of Google technology that contains quite a number of features and functions. Some of these can operate as a stand alone service; for example, Gmail, the JavaScript beastie of remarkable capability. Other functions need the Google datasphere to work; for example, the time slicing across different Google functions. In my opinion, until the plastic bag metaphor is considered, analyses of Wave will be in terms of software such as SharePoint, which is too limiting for the Googlers’ innovation.
Stephen Arnold, August 11, 2009
Google and Real Time Maps
August 11, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to GoogleMapMania’s “Real Time Google Maps”. The article contains a number of links to real time Google Maps created by developers. The one that I found most useful was the Chicago Transit Authority map. Google has a burgeoning transportation services business. Those operating bus, rail, and shuttle services may want to take note of this CTA-centric gizmo.
Stephen Arnold, August 11, 2009
Google Marketing to the Enterprise
August 10, 2009
I usually find Larry Dignan’s view of information technology spot. I was not too surprised with the argument in his “Google’s Campaign for Apps Doesn’t Address the IT Data Elephant in the Room.” The key passage in the article for me was:
In fact, nothing in Google’s marketing toolbox—the viral emails, the YouTube videos and the posters you can plaster near the water cooler—are going to change fact that your corporate data is hosted by Google. If Google really wants to entice the enterprise it should have skipped the YouTube videos and allowed companies to store some of their own data.
I agree that Google has not done a good job of addressing the “Google has your data” argument.
Google has some patent documents that describe clever ways to have some data processed by Google’s systems and other data on a client’s servers with the client retaining control over the data. I am sitting in an airport at 4 50 am Eastern and don’t have access to my Google files. My recollection is that Google has been beavering away with systems and methods to provide different control methods.
The problem with Google is the loose coupling between the engineering and marketing at Google. The push to the enterprise strikes me as a way to capitalize on several market trends for which Google has data. Keep in mind that Google does not take actions in a cavalier way. Data drive most decisions, based on my research. Then group think takes over. In that process, the result is a way to harvest low hanging fruit.
After some time passes, engineering methods follow along that add features, functions, and some robustness. A good example is the Google Search Appliance. In its first version security was lax. The present version provides a number of security features. Microsoft uses the same approach which has caused me to wait until version 3 of a Microsoft product before I jump on board. For Google, the process of change is incremental and much less visible.
My hunch is that once Google’s “go Google” program responds to the pent up demand for more hands on support for the appliance, Apps, and maps—then the Google will add additional features. The timeline may well be measured in years.
If a company wants to use Google technology to reduce costs now and reduce to some degree the hurdles that traditional information technology approaches put in the way of senior management, the “go Google” program will do its job.
Over time, Google will baby step forward. Those looking for traditional approaches to enterprise software will have a field day criticizing Google and its approach. My thought is that Google seems to be moving forward with serious intent.
I think there will be even louder and more aggressive criticism of Google’s new enterprise push. In my opinion, that criticism will not have much of an impact on the Google. The company seems to be making money, growing, and finding traction despite its unorthodox methods.
Will Google “win” in the enterprise sector? I don’t know. I do know that Google is disruptive, and that the effects of the disruption create opportunities. Traditional enterprise software companies may want to look at those opportunities, not argue that the ways of the past are the ways of the future. The future will be different from what most of us have spent years learning to love. Google’s approach is based on the fact that customers * want * Google solutions, particularly applications that require search and access to information. That is not what traditional information technology professional want.
Stephen Arnold, August 10, 2009
SAP and Its Evolving Business Model
August 10, 2009
First, the Tibco rumor and now the SAP on demand software strategy. Managing Automation’s “SAP Unveils an On-Demand Software Strategy for Large Enterprise Customers” surprised me. I had dismissed SAP’s cloud chatter as fog. Not so according to Jeff Moad, a member of the Managing Automation editorial staff. He wrote:
At a recent SaaS conference in Amsterdam, John Wookey, SAP’s executive vice president for large enterprise on-demand, said the company plans to roll out a series of SaaS products for large enterprises that integrate tightly with SAP’s on-premise Business Suite and run on the Java-based on-demand platform that SAP acquired along with Frictionless Commerce in 2006. SAP will concentrate on selling the SaaS offerings to existing users of its business suite rather than new accounts, Wookey said. SAP’s SaaS offerings for large enterprises will include some existing and some new products. Existing products include SAP’s CRM on-demand and e-sourcing services. SAP CRM on-demand will be migrated to the Frictionless on-demand platform…
You can get a consultant’s viewpoint and some verbiage from SAP top brass. For me, the article triggered three thoughts:
- How will SAP make up the shortfall between the revenue from its traditional approach to licensing and deploying its software and the “cloud” model?
- If there is strong uptake for SAP cloud services, from where will the engineers needed to service the clients come? If SAP trims down the functionality, won’t the savvy buyer look for lower cost cloud options or just fire up some coders to create a solution using Google or Microsoft functions?
- What will customers be getting? Will this service be a 2009 version of Microsoft’s early push into cloud computing?
- Whither TREX search?
I don’t have answers, and I didn’t see them in the Managing Automation write up.
Stephen Arnold, August 11, 2009
Google’s Data Center Strategy Questioned
August 10, 2009
Google fired up its engineering engines in the period between 1996 and 2002. As the company entered its run up to its initial public offering, Google had locked and loaded on some core principles. I am sure you have internalized these by now. It has been more than a 11 years since the Google came on the search world’s radar.
The Register’s headline “Will Google Regret the Mega Data Center?” raises an interesting question. The story was written in August 2009, more than a decade after the GOOG launched itself. Can decade old technology remain viable in today’s wild and crazy technical world? Cade Metz reported:
In the wake of Microsoft’s decision to remove its Windows Azure infrastructure from the state of Washington – where a change in local tax law has upped the price of building out the proverbial cloud – the company’s former director of data center services has warned that Microsoft and other cloud-happy giants may soon find that the mega data center isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. “[Large cloud providers] are burning through tremendous amounts of capital believing that these facilities will ultimately give them strategic advantage,” reads a blog post from Mike Manos, who recently left Microsoft for data center outfit Digital Realty Trust.
Yikes! Google. A fat and out-of-step dinosaur?
Google has three dozen data centers, a model that Microsoft has emulated. Google has according to chatter about a million servers humming along. What is The Register’s take on this important issue? You will have to read Mr. Metz’s article.
My view:
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