Google's Matthew Glotzbach Cites Progress in Cloud Computing

Ben Keppes reports in the really fine ReadWriteWeb blog on the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco and discusses the progress in Cloud Computing over the past year. One of the highlights he reported on was the keynote address by Matthew Glotzbach (Google Enterprise) who listed the ten things that you can do in the clouds today that you couldn't do a year ago. Not surprisingly, he mostly talked about Google-related things, so the list is not complete. Still,  Matthew's list is a reminder of how far we've come in a short space of time. 

1. Having access to everything on the go - iPhone (Lifehacker has a good description)
2. Being able to search through all my email - (Gmail or Apps)
3. Chatting with customers and partners - in any language - Matthew gave a very cool live demo of inline translation of chat, and once again, Lifehacker has a good description.
4. Easy collaboration with Google products Sites and Docs. Lee Lefavre provides a great explanation
5. Organizing travel using TripIt, a personal travel assistant.
6. Easily collecting data from co-workers and customers using Google forms
7. Building a scalable business application on the cloud platform with Force.com
8. Using online templates for docs, spreadsheets and presentations
9. Running fast, secure and stable web apps (Chrome)
10. Securely sharing video in apps with Youtube for Google apps

Earlier, Sarah Perez, in the same fine blog, wrote about Adobe Air apps for the Enterprise. (The Googlegazer wrote about Adobe Air and the increasing competition between Google and Adobe, so it's not surprising that Matthew did not mention it).

While the foregoing list still encompasses but a fraction of most people's daily computing tasks, it's certainly suggests that Cloud Computing is very real and growing remarkably quickly. 

Not surprisingly, the earliest adopters are "SMBs" (small and medium-size businesses) and pockets of independence in large corporations. Some of the successful cloud applications for SMBs (and scalable to the enterprise) are SalesForce.com and its underlying platform, Force.com, which the GoogleGazer described recently.  Intacct, (on-demand accounting and financial management applications and supply chain management), Adaptive Planning (collaborative budgeting and forecasting) and Bill.com (Cloud-based approach for managing accounts payable).

This time next year, the CloudGazer hopes to revisit this topic again, to see just how far the world of Cloud Computing and Software as a Service (SaaS) has has progressed, notwithstanding Harry Debes' wishful thinking that SaaS is just an ephemeral phenomenon that will collapse within two years. He is CEO of Lawson, which doesn't support SaaS for its ERP services.

So What, Exactly is Cloud Computing, and What Is It Not?

The CloudGazer remembers when the first data base management systems (DBMS) started to emerge (Cullinane's IDMS, Software AG's Adabas, IBM's IMS/db and a few others).  These products replaced old-fashioned indexed-sequential (ISAM) files that provided more limied indexing. Any vendor lacking one felt at a competetive disadvantage. So what did these hapless vendors do? They tinkered slightly with their products and rechristened them as DBMS. 

So too with Cloud Computing. Anyone today running a hosted service of any description is tinkering with it slightly and renaming it as an SaaS aervice that is delivered as a Cloud application. Put out a press release. Crank up the hype. Tell the stockbrokers. They've got a Cloud Computing application.

Not so fast. Cloud Computing is not (as pointed out in GoogleGazer) Mainframe Bess in a new dress, and it's not any old Internet application running on a rackserver someplace.

Cloud computing is designed to handle many different clients at once, and to scale (in both directions) in minutes not months. This  requires a different mindset and a different approach to writing code. And right now, let's be honest about it, the tools aren't all there yet. 

Remember when most websites were developed directly in HTML? It was difficult, tedious work, and the sites were mostly static "brochureware.". Well, it took a few years, but now "any dummy" (meaning me) can create decent-looking updatable, interactive sites. E-commerce can be added with a few clicks. 

Well, Cloud Computing today is roughly at the stage the web  was 15 years ago, but it's maturing at an even more rapid pace.

We'll plumb the depths of Cloud Computing in future posts.

Welcome to Eye On The Cloud

As the GoogleGazer blog evolved, I found that many of the posts were dedicated to Cloud Computing and to Software as a Service (SaaS) and were not focused (as was promised) on the specific comings and goings of Google, its friends and its enemies. Yet, these "off topic" posts garnered some of the heaviest traffic on the site, testimony to the great interest in Cloud Computing and SaaS.

Obviously the time has come to create a separate blog devoted to these topics.

Reader participation is welcome. You are welcome to post comments and to write to me with suggestions at cloudgazer@eyeonthecloud.com.