More Blue Analytics

IBM continues to position itself as the absolute leader in Business Analytics and Optimization. With the acquisition of SPSS IBM has the deepest portfolio of products and services available under one roof. Oracle also has quality products but it lacks IBM's depth in Business Consulting. On the other hand SAS software and consulting is top notch but IBM's offering is superior because it can enhance its analytics platform with database, hardware and decision management software. It is almost too much for a single company to handle effectively. For sure some new buyers will be concerned with vendor lock-in but I believe most IBM customers will be glad to have access to all of these capabilities from a trusted advisor.

While Cloud Computing has grabbed most of the headlines this year, the developments in Predictive Analytics should not be ignored. I am convinced that the intersection of Cloud Computing and Predictive Analytics will provide the perfect stage for the future of business innovations.

The Cloud is Crossing the Chasm

Cloud Computing is crossing the chasm. Every other week you hear about the deployment of Cloud Computing applications to thousands of users by leading corporations and governments. These deployments go hand in hand with the announcement of new Cloud offerings by leading technology vendors and service providers. You can still find disagreements about the size of the market or the actual definition but there is no doubt that Cloud Computing is having a great year and the best is yet to come. These are some of the many news/announcements that caught my eye:

1) This is a couple of months old but I have to mention Oracle's acquisition of Sun. It was interesting to see Oracle make the move after all the talk about IBM buying Sun. But the implications to the industry are far more intriguing. How is this acquisition going to impact HP? Will IBM see any impact from Oracle 'owning' Java? Will ORCL be able to manage Hardware and Software effectively? Oracle has been a bit slow to announce a compelling Cloud strategy. Sun made a late announcement about their software strategy and more recently another one about consulting services for the Cloud. This is an intriguing combination, it might seem like the odds are against them but you should never underestimate Oracle.

2) TIBCO launches TIBCO Silver an application development platform for AMZN's AWS. I'm intrigued by this announcement. Although some have labeled it "Amazon for Dummies" I'm curious to see if TIBCO will be able to leverage some of its sophisticated analytical technology for intelligent scaling and SLAs.

3) In close partnership with RedHat (RHT) Verizon (VZ) launched a new service offering called Computing as a Service (CaaS) "With CaaS, you have access to bandwidth, servers, storage, and firewalls with dynamic real-time control over what, when, and how those resources are deployed". This service will put pressure on traditional/smaller hosting providers looking to transition to the Cloud. It will also help enterprise customers feel more comfortable about embracing the Cloud.

4) The brilliant Ray Ozzie elaborates on Microsoft's view of the Cloud. You know it is serious when Microsoft gets serious about it. It is hard not to imagine a future with public and private clouds, unless of course, networking technology evolves to a point where the difference is irrelevant. Given MSFT's impressive footprint in the enterprise (Exchange, Sharepoint, SQL Server, etc.) they seem to be in a perfect position to dominate that hybrid world with Azure. If you can offer greater scalability, lower costs and greater flexibility leveraging the same skills and the technology you already have then you have a winning recipe. The question is "Will they be able to execute?"

5) CSC to offer cloud services. Now if it wasn't enough that Microsoft is dead serious about Cloud Computing, CSC one of the largest and most successful government contractors will leverage its security and strategy expertise to offer cloud services. I'm expecting Lockheed, EDS and others to follow with similar offerings. These services will certainly lower the risk for CIOs in the public sector.

6) More fuzzy math, this time courtesy of Gartner in one of their estimates for the size of the Cloud Computing industry. Inconsistent estimates are the consequence of inconsistent market definitions, I can see that. I just hope that there are no hidden agendas.

7) Google Apps is profitable and growing. Although not a direct replacement of MS Office, Google Apps continues to capture market share one enterprise customer at a time. Although mostly driven by cost savings in Email you can expect the adoption of Google Docs to increase as new and improved versions continue to roll out over the next year (including of course my favorites: App Engine and SDC).

With so much activity it is hard to believe that the best is yet to come but trust me, it is. Hang on tight.

HTML5

Today Google dominated the spotlight with with the announcement of Google Wave. The idea and implementation appear superb while the approach to open a lot of its code is very intriguing. However what I found just as important was HTML5 and how much Google is embracing it.

Google has an impressive portfolio of APIs and products for developers. They have created and embraced a large number of open standards and are working hard to bring everything together as a comprehensive platform. A platform that depends heavily on the support by "Modern Open Source Browsers" of HTML5 and Javascript.

Microsoft has a dominant footprint in the enterprise and Silverlight continues to gain popularity. Adobe's Flash is as ubiquitous as HTML and Flex is also gaining momentum. But I when I look at the power and simplicity of Google's App Engine, along with the dozens of open APIs (from visualization to online analytics to documents scripting) it is hard to believe that the status quou will resist this powerful 'wave' of innovation. 

Blue Analytics

IBM is launching a new consulting organization to focus on Business Analytics. This is a very significant move that should bring a lot of positive developments to the industry. IBM has tremendous experience in business consulting and unmatched technology assets to deliver a complete an actionable solution. 

I am convinced that Analytics will be a key differentiator in years to come. Companies will need to compete with Analytics to remain competitive. The technology is available and the current economic conditions - along the need for better risk management - will foster unprecedented innovation. Welcome to the Analytics generation.

SDC is what really matters

Two days ago Google announced several enhancements to the AppEngine. The support for Java grabbed most of the headlines. It was the number one feature request from developers and it certainly opens new possibilities for JRuby, Scala and others. Personally, I prefer non strongly typed languages like Python but I digress. 

During this announcement Google also introduced the Secure Data Connector (SDC) to access data behind the firewall. This, I think is more significant and will have a bigger impact on the Cloud Computing landscape. Establishing a secure yet simple to setup link between the Cloud and corporate data assets will prove to be a game changer. Microsoft knows this and it has been developing its Cloud platform to interconnect public and private clouds as well. It seems that many companies are going to be publishing connectors in the near future, among them Oracle.

One step at a time the Cloud continues to evolve and mature. Each evolution delivers new capabilities and removes obstacles. The future is exciting; without a doubt.

AMZN AWSome

Well, Amazon strikes again. MapReduce (Hadoop) on demand. Although AMZN already offered some Hadoop pre-configured AMIs, the simplicity of this new packaging makes it much easier. Furthermore, it is synergistic with EC2 and S3.

I have been using Amazon Web Services for close to a year now and they continue to surpass my expectations. I wouldn't be surprised if AMZN spun off AWS and filed for an IPO sometime next year. It is not easy to isolate AWS's revenues from AMZN financial statements but with customers in 96 countries and a super scalable business model I have to believe this is a cash machine for them. These folks are brilliant. 

Many people often relate the Cloud to pure storage and CPUs as in pure hosting. AMZN goes up one level and provides application services. SimpleDB and SQS are good examples, now Elastic Map Reduce is another one. These are higher level application services on demand, industrial strength and world class.

A quote from Spiderman comes to mind: "... with great power comes great responsibility". What would you do with all this power?

Weekly roundup

The following announcements from last week caught my attention:

• The New York Times keeps publishing new APIs, now for state legislature. Just like the Guardian in the UK it seems they are truly looking to reinvent themselves.
• Google enables behavioral ad targeting. This is a brilliant maneuver. It is simple and powerful in classic Google style.

Weekly roundup

This is the Cloud Computing announcements that I found most interesting this past week:

• Juniper and IBM partner for Cloud management. Thse Cloud ecosystem continues to grow but now the emphasis is on the networking operational processes. The effort and awareness generated by these giants will continue to accelerate Cloud developments and deployments. However I get a bit nervous when too much attention is centered around private clouds. Few cases will justify the investment in a private Cloud but for most cases I think it beats the purpose. In my mind embracing public Clouds securely will create a more open world.

Cloud Success Story

Cindy Waxer wrote a nice article for Fortune Small Business about the experience of a couple of companies using Cloud Computing for mission critical applications. It makes a lot of sense that the majority of early adopters tend to be medium or small size companies. It could be that large corporations are more skeptical, they have resources to spare or simple job security stands in the way of innovation.

Weekly roundup

These are the headlines that caught my attention this past week:

• IBM launches AMZN AMIs. Glad to see IBM move in this direction. Customers will still need to have their own licenses but the provisioning and setup should be much faster. This would have been very handy for a former customer of mine in the automotive industry. We had a 45 day project delay because the production server was not ready.
• Experian launches QAS Pro On Demand, address verification and standardization on demand. I am a big fan of on demand data quality/enhancement services. In house solutions could be very expensive and cumbersome to put together. 
• YHOO announces pricing structure for BOSS. I am all for this because nothing can be free forever. I hope other vendors follow suit and charge users for extended use of their services. I also wish everybody offered (AMZN AWS) offered a limited set of services at no charge.
• The New York Times "big" API is now available: 2.8 million articles from 1981 to date.

Weekly Roundup

These are the headlines that caught my attention this past week:

• Sun announces Cloud Computing Service. This is a somewhat late entry from a struggling company. I look forward to more details; I think they face an uphill battle against more established players like AMZN and GOOG and against more recent offerings from IBM and MSFT.
• Mosso puts pressure on the pricing of cloud storage and content delivery, directly challenging Amazon. I don't know how these services compare but I am sure Mosso will not be the last vendor to go after AMZN with aggressive pricing. I have never been a big fan of competing on price in a market that is still so young. I would rather see additional functionality be the key differentiator. Particularly when there are so many opportunities to innovate. I hope this is not a sign that the Mosso team is running low on ideas.

Weekly roundup

These are the Cloud Computing news or announcements that I found most interesting this past week, in no particular order:

• IBM's announcements at Lotusphere. I think this is a brillinat move by IBM: incrementally expanding their current offering to leverage leading cloud services. 
  
• The New York Times reports that CISCO plans to launch a computer server with virtualization software. This is an intriguing move. I'm not sure I can see CISCO being very successful in this market but they are a world class company and I'm looking forward to see how it plays out.
  
• This article on the Business Mirror describes how the US Department of Defense is looking to leverage the lessons learned from leading Cloud Computing providers.
• The New York Times released their Best Sellers API. This is a nice addition to their Congress, Movie Reviews, Campaign Finance and Community APIs.