Tag: cloud computing

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Or more.

Alex Greer posted the following picture on Twitter under the caption:

I turn around and find my parents at the kids’ table at the @apple store. ~ @alexpgreer

BcJWbqDCYAAKsZhNow what can this picture teach us?

1) The learning curve on the tablet is so low that Seniors find it easy to use.

2) The learning curve on the tablet is so low that children find it easy to use.

3) Very important: Both seniors and children (and those in-between) are attracted to the tablet and ENJOY using it.

Extrapolating from there:

4) Whole new classes of people are being drawn to computing. Salesmen on the go, park rangers, kiosk owners, presenters, school children, soccer moms and seniors who never before felt a need (or felt competent enough) to own and operate a computer.

Speculating from there:

5) Our devices are mere windows to our data stored in the cloud. We don’t choose the one tool that does it all or is most powerful, we choose whichever tool works best for the situation at hand.

But I’ll say no more. I’ll let the picture speak for itself.

A Cloud Computing Primer

Photo of cloudsThe DEMO conference may not be the stellar event it with once was, but its still a good indicator of the computing zeitgeist. At least week’s edition in Santa Clara, CA, it was pretty clear that the tech world is still buzzing about clouds. As a result, anything with online components–and that is pretty much everything–is being billed as a service in the cloud. It’s time to take a look at what the cloud is, and isn’t.

Even if we try to be fairly rigorous about the meaning, its clear that the term “cloud computing” refers to two very different things. One, which I will call the personal cloud, refers to services provide both online storage and allow you to sync content to local storage on multiple, diverse devices. And What I’ll call the infrastructure cloud provides flexible, remote computing capability as a service to companies.

The personal cloud has been around for a long time in various forms. Email has functioned as a cloud service since the development of the POP3 and IMAP protocols. But lately we have seen enormous growth in generalized clouds  that provide storage and syncing with various degrees of integration into desktop and mobile apps: DropBox, SugarSync, Apple MobileMe/iCloud, Microsoft SkyDrive, and the imminent Google Drive are all examples of such services.

The services are going to become increasingly important as personal computing shifts from PCs with abundant local storage and often limited connectivity to tablets and other mobile devices with very limited storage  and no real file system but ubiquitous connections. And the limited processing power of mobile devices argues for greater apps in which much of the computational load is carried by a server. These apps are sometimes called cloud computing, too, though the more traditional “web services” is probably a better description.

The infrastructure cloud is a very different beast. It’s what allows organizations,from startups to large enterprises, to do their processing on someone else’s computers,adding and shedding capacity as needed and paying only for what you use. It has been particularly revolutionary for startups, since it lets them both provide services without any capital investment and to scale very rapidly if their offering takes off.

The infrastructure cloud exists in three forms, though the divisions between them are not always very sharp. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offers basic servers, set up with your choice of operating system, storage, and connectivity. Amazon Web Servicesi s the best-known purveyor of IaaS, especially with its Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3). You pay Amazon for the number of virtual servers you use (with different charges for varying  amounts of processing capacity), your storage, and the amount of data you move in and out of the system, with additional charges for added services, such as load-balancing.

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) moves a step up the software stack. Instead of a bare server, you get a system provisioned for a specific platform. well known examples are Microsoft’s .NET-based Azure, Google’s App Engine, and Safesforce.com’s Force.com.

At the top of the stack is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), which offers specific applications or clusters of applications. SaaS is not conceptually very different from familiar Web apps such as Gmail, but on an enterprise scale. Leading examples include Google Apps for Business and Salesforce.com’s cloud-based customer relations management software.

Cloud services are hot right now, but they aren’t the solution to all business technology problems. They are terrific for startups, which typically are cash-poor and need to minimize capital expenditures. They  also have great advantages for companies that need to meet highly variable demand or need to scale rapidly. Investing in a server infrastructure designed to meet peak demand but then sits idle much of the time is generally a bad way to allocate your resources.

On the other hand, many companies are not comfortable trusting all of their data to third-party hosts, or may face legal or regulatory restrictions in doing so. Some folks just want to have control over their own systems. and at some point of scale, the economics often tip in favor of running your own servers.

 

 

Hello, Tech.pinions

I am pleased to announce that, as one element of building a new high tech industry analyst firm, I will be joining Techpinions as a part of the columnist team and as partner. It is an honor to work with Tim Bajarin, Ben Bajarin, Stephen Wildstrom, Peter Lewis and many of the awesome contributors.

What I Believe
I believe that we, the tech industry, have the largest opportunity in front of us that has ever existed. The intersection of the biowatch, phone, tablet, computer, home appliances, living room electronics, automobiles and the multiple apps, networks and data centers that connect them, will just be the start of a revolution. We will move from where we are now into a “complete” cloud computing model which, after many years, will then morph its way into an ambient computing model. By ambient, I mean all around us, in the background, and automatic.

 

To interact in this environment, end users will utilize advanced and natural HCI techniques like speech and air gestures in addition to traditional touch, mouse and keyboard. Sure, there are interim steps in the future models, but one must envision where the puck will be before skating there. There are many uncertainties, but what is certain is the amount of power and control end users have.

What to Expect From Me at Tech.pinions
As an industry analyst, I will be analyzing interconnected ecosystems and for some, advising them on how to best address those future market shifts. One of the vehicles I will be using to publicly communicate my views on the emerging “complete” cloud and ambient computing spaces will be through Tech.pinions. While not exclusive to Tech.pinions, it will be a key communication vehicle. Analysis and opinions will span end usage models and behavior, technologies, and business models that shape the technology future.

It’s About the Conversation
Our industry’s learning and insight model has fundamentally changed now that there is a structured way to garner the insights of millions of individuals via social media. I would like there to be a conversation around these opinions at Techpinions, too. You can either comment here, or you can reach me at Twitter, Google Plus, or LinkedIn.

Stay Tuned
This is just one of many announcements I will be making between now and CES as I build a up a technology analyst practice. I look forward to getting your direct, honest, insightful, and non-politically correct input as we move forward.

You can find Patrick’s full bio here.