In the darkness bind them ...

I picked this up Tom Lord's comment on Nick's recent blog post about "A typology of network strategies"

"Yes, we want a utility infrastruture but no, we don't want the power company to be the sole provider of compatible toasters" & "we will have to bust up and separate the two realms of business"

The platform plays in the cloud world will separate the resource providers (ISPs) from the application providers (ISVs and community) and provide a common technology framework between the two.

The two businesses will be kept separate but they will also be bound and ruled by the platform. This is why, in my view, the recent spate of blog posts about Amazon EC2 (a cloud ISP) vs Azure Services Platform (a platform play) miss the point.

To explain, I'll note the following from Microsoft's own literature and apparently Ballmer's own statements:

• "the cost—in terms of capital expenditure and the time and effort of staff to support those solutions—has become increasingly prohibitive"
• "The Microsoft Azure Services Platform provides the foundation for you to help customers tackle these challenges"
• "you’ll have the flexibility and interoperability you need to deliver robust, yet cost-effective, solutions to expand your practice and your revenue"
• "All of the innovations we'll make in cloud services, we will also repackage over time back into our server offerings"
• "partners won't come up empty-handed in Microsoft's hosting plan"
• "Microsoft will also continue investing in partner programs"

Using a bit of twisted logic, you could imply that the long term future of Azure might well be as a technology platform provided by a marketplace of different ISPs on top of which is built a marketplace of applications created by different ISVs. If this is the case, you could think of Microsoft's own data centres as a beach-head for this strategy.

Amazon was recently praised by Ozzie for releasing its cloud services before Microsoft. He is reported to have said that "all of us are going to be standing on their shoulders". I wonder if he was speaking literally and that Azure Service Platform will be available on Amazon's servers at sometime?

If that turns out to be the case, then Amazon will truly find itself playing the role of one of the nine.

Blinking cell ...

Need a new watch? Try our bio-watch made from genetically modified cells, powered by photosynthesis, fully biodegradable, 100 year life span and even makes a tasty snack if you're feeling hungry.

Well, we're not quite there yet, but this announcement from UC San Diego is certainly timely news.

How long?

The simple solutions to environmental degradation are less consumption or fewer people.

The past twenty years have definitely taught us that less consumption is out.

I wonder how long it will be before we see the first examples of bio-terrorism based upon environmental concerns (whether individual, group or sponsored by a state).

History has taught us that despite the monstrous, unethical and vile nature of murderous acts such as genocide and eugenics, a madman's reasoning has often been used to justify these same acts in terms of some "higher purpose".

I have little doubt that there are madmen in our society today.

On a positive note, I'm very encouraged by Barack Obama's promise of $150 billion for clean energy research. I'm a little less impressed that this is over ten years. Still, it's a step in the right direction.

Tim 1 ... Others 0

A couple of people have been asking me recently about the whole Tim vs Carr vs others debates. There are lots of good points being raised but I'll keep it simple, in my opinion Tim is right.

I'm being blunt because Tim made some extremely good points and was promptly criticised from various quarters without people (in my view) really critically evaluating what he said. I've lost count of the number of times this has happened to Tim whether it's over social network portability, supporting open source or even the whole web 2.0 concept.

There are network effects but it is not (nor has it ever been) sustainable at the hardware / infrastructure layer of the computing stack. Whilst I have previously discussed, in a number of posts, how preferential performance and pricing can be used to create network effects within a single cloud provider (i.e. through data transfer or intra-cloud api calls), these effects are relatively weak. For comparison consider the network effects associated with having a telephone number (strong) vs the network effects of cheaper phone calls between users on the same network (weak).

As far as I'm concerned the future for this part of the stack is one of invisibility, high volume, low margins and open source. This is not where the battle for the cloud will be fought.

Awesome ...

Have a read, have a play and then spend a few moments to consider how powerful an open sourced JavaScript everywhere framework provided by a marketplace of cloud providers could become.

Now take a look at ReasonablySmart.com.

Looking for a good author ...

Manolis is the creator of a piece of technology which turns an ordinary paper book into an interactive experience. I've written about this before but just in case you haven't seen this, I've included a video of me playing with the technology.

I want to be quite clear, this is a paper book which you touch words in and it interacts with your computer. It keeps all the wonderful characteristics of paper whilst gaining all the enjoyment of interaction. I love this concept unlike the Kindle which I think of as a poor excuse for a book.

Unfortunately Manolis' publisher has been unable to find an "absolutely stellar writer to justify the spend" which means the book won't be produced anytime soon.

So I've created a facebook group and I'm looking to find people willing to support this project. I need to be clear that I've worked with Manolis as part of amphilab, I still support him in his goal to find funding and I have a small interest in the company.

Manolis will need:-

• An outstanding author wanting to write a book which will be blinked.
• 1,000 people willing to buy the world's first ever truly interactive paper book. It won't be cheap (around £200) but each person will be named in the book and invited to the launch party.
• Ten companies who wish to buy sponsored links at £25,000. Each link will be a permanent electronic link from the physical book to their web site.

This is what it will take to usher in a new era of interactive books.

I wandered lonely as a cloud ...

First wander ...

Over the last few days, there has been a lot of to and fro between Tim O'Reilly and Nick Carr over cloud computing. I'm sure more is to follow.

The debate over network effects at the hardware (what is commonly called Infrastructure as a Service) level of the stack (from bare bones to virtualised images to operating system) is of little value to me. The shift of the computing stack from product to services will inevitably accelerate the process by which these lower level orders of the computing stack become invisible. The lower levels will find themselves pushed to a low-margin standardised high-volume business based entirely upon open source.

What interests me is that the argument for portability, interoperability and transparency in the "cloud" will inevitably shift to the framework (development platform, messaging system, database, templating system and so forth) level of the stack (or what is commonly called Platform as a Service).

The framework layer will consolidate to a few large marketplaces with each marketplace based upon a standard framework. A few of these frameworks will be proprietary but most will be open sourced. For each standard framework there will be many homogeneous providers with portability between them.

This framework layer (which Tim hints at) is where the real battleground is. This is where the real network effects are. This is where the trillion dollar company exists. Why on earth do you think I started Zimki back in 2005-7? Why do you think MSFT is releasing Azure?

Anyone still needing help to work out where all this is heading, just think about Ballmer's comment on enabling "Microsoft partners to create their own cloud infrastructure", think about a marketplace of ISP's all providing the same framework, think about how over the last decade the lower levels of the computing stack have become invisible to most developers and then go read my old blog post.

However, a marketplace based upon a proprietary cloud technology vendor has lots of attractions from the acceleration of innovation (through componentisation) to the more mundane capex to opex conversion. James Governor said in a recent tweet that "no amount of assertive statements from thought leaders will prevent customers from adopting proprietary technology". He is absolutely right. This is a gilded cage that some CIOs are not going to walk but rush into.

My only advise is that if you're the CEO of a company and your CIO is talking cloud, find someone with a senior level background in manufacturing to check their reasoning. If you hear the words "lacks second sourcing" then consider upgrading the CIO. It'll pay in the long run.

[For reference, my reasoning for Zimki was derived from Tim's earlier work on Infoware and the Open Source paradigm shift]

[Dennis Howlett has a really interesting piece on this whole topic.]

Second wander ...

When I worked for Canon (2001-2007), along with Zimki, utility computing and open source, I used to write endless reports about the dangers of mobile phones to the camera business, the future of 3D printing & fabrication technologies along with being fairly vociferous against SED. I've always believed it to be dangerous to focus exclusively on the core or with what you are comfortable with. That's a lesson I learned from reading Schumpeter.

This is especially true during recessionary times. It should never be forgotten that such times do create opportunities, not just for industry but government as a whole.

Despite the neocons desperate denials, as we've seen from the banking fiasco, the laissez faire school of economic lunacy has turned out to be a house of cards. However, there is always a silver lining. Our Government appears to be slowly turning away from the mumbled dribblings on money supply of those Chicago School ephors and back to an eminently more sensible and direct Keynesian approach of investment.

This is good news ... assuming it lasts.

Beyond the positive buy-out and part nationalisation of banks and the promises of public building works, the government should look towards bolder measures including the wholesale plunder and pillage of the weakest industrial sectors to the benefit of society.

The building industry and auditing professions are prime-time to be pushed towards nationalisation and bought up on the cheap and invested in. There are lots of measures such as the enforced auction of land banks with unused planning permissions which could be introduced in order to assist with this transfer.

Furthermore, since lots of parents are no longer sending their little darlings to those expensive private schools, a quick dropping of the charitable tax status plus a few extra regulatory burdens should force a few of these schools towards bankruptcy. Picking these up on the cheap would be an excellent way to bolster the national education system. This is to say nothing of the potential to buy-up private hospitals on the cheap.

If the government sets her mind to it, it could make a nice little earner. Despite the nay-sayers professing doom should the government take such action, there will always be plenty of entrepreneurs keen to rebuild after we get through these tough times. A bit of piracy might also help with social mobility, for people to go up others also have to come down.

A Keynesian approach of control, intervention and ruthlessness and a mix of the skull and cross bones combined with a healthy dash of "ahoy there, me mateys!" is what we need. In the long run, it is also the only sensible way forward.

[Update Nov 2012 - Alas those pesky monetarists weren't quite as dead as I hoped QED QE.]

Third wander ...

As any biologist or sociologist will tell you, the fastest growth of any population is normally the generation before it collapses due to environmental degradation. The "golden" age always happens just before the fall. It happens with populations from bacteria to wolves. It also happened with the Mayans and the Romans.

We're next.

The laissez faire ephors would have us praying to the invisible fable that is the pareto optimality whilst we burn and plunder natural resources and ponder how we can turn the vast reserves of methyl hydrates into a viable source of fuel. I'd rather trust to reason than such gods of future-discounting lunacy.

This is why the latest debate that the worldwide limit of 450 ppm CO2 (a level which will cause runaway climate warming) is not achievable in economic terms is just madness. We've discounted the future long enough. Without a hospitable environment there are no future trillion dollar companies. Without a hospitable environment there is no economy.

Our choice is simple. Either we choose to do something on a grand enough scale or we choose to let nature decide our fate. Whilst many are hopeful that serendipity will conjure up some magic to solve our problems, I fear that many Mayans and Romans probably did the same.

Whilst I'm all for a gamble, if the upside is more gadgets and the downside is possible extinction ... it just doesn't seem worth it.

Head Conference

I'm speaking Aral Balkan's most excellent Head Conference later this evening. It's the first totally online conference and it really has been fabulous so far.

Anyway, I like to experiment in formats, as with my use of Hegelian dialectics at FOWA. So this time, I'm going to try something completely different.

I've already recorded my talk which I'll broadcast during my slot, and while it's playing I'll answer questions and stop and explain bits where necessary. Of course people can watch the talk at their convenience and if you want to watch beforehand then please feel free. I've provided the video below.

Why open matters from innovation to commoditisation

Far from the Madding Cloud ...

Today I was faced with a challenge.

Explain cloud computing and why interoperability, portability and markets based upon open sourced standards are important IN layman terms!

Now as James' says, I've done this subject to death over the last few years. So I thought I'd try to explain all of this using example for cloud computing and an analogy to explain why interoperability, openness and so forth is important.

So here goes ...

Imagine that average Joe has taken out a big loan to buy lots of very expensive computer hardware.

Tom rents this hardware from average Joe and uses his technological wizardry to make it all appear as one big computer.

Dick rents this big computer from Tom and uses his virtualisation technology to make it appear as lots of small virtual machines.

Harry rents some of these virtual machines and creates a multi-tenanted storage service and messaging system.

Alice also rents virtual machines from Dick to provide a multi-tenanted framework for developing applications in. Rather than building all the elements of the framework she rents Harry's storage and messaging system however she provides access to it through her own API.

Bob rents an instance of this multi-tenanted framework from Alice in order to build a multi-tenanted application which provides transport routing information based upon user provided data, some super smart algorithms and an external cartographic web service from Dave.

Sue, who runs IT for a multi-billion dollar transport company, decides to use Bob's new transport routing system as a key part of her business processes. It's provided on a software as a service basis and marketed as "cloud" which is the latest hot thing, so Sue is happy.

Sue has never heard of Dave, Alice, Harry, Dick, Tom or average Joe. That's cloud computing!

The downside is that average Joe forgets to pay a bill and his machines get repossessed.

As for the analogy;

Imagine that average Joe has taken out a big loan to buy lots of very expensive houses.

Tom uses his financial wizardry to make it all appear as one big security.

Dick divides this security into smaller ...

... you know the rest.

Almost .... but not quite

So according to James Urquhart's post, Google App Engine is going to be supporting JavaScript.

Well, it's about time. JavaScript everywhere (browser and cloud side) will open up the framework to a much wider pool of talent.

Well it's a positive move in my book seeing that I've been there, done that and bought the T-Shirt.

The one major downside is that they're not opening up all the other ancillary components of the framework including bigTable. If they did this, then we might actually start to see an ecosystem of providers develop in the cloud.

I might actually find a cloud service that I'm happy with.

Stop dithering ... you're going to have to in the long run.

Three Rules Happy ...

When it comes to cloud computing, I have three basic rules of happiness. However, before we get to my rules, I have some absolute minimum requirements that any service must meet before I'd even consider it to be cloudy. These include :-

• I have readable access to all my data, code, frameworks and meta data that may have been created as a result of me using the service. It's my data after all, not yours.
• The service is appropriately secure, scalable & resilient and must be charged for on an "as use" basis. I certainly don't want to pay for something that I'm not using, which means I also don't want to pay for using my own machines.
• The T&Cs should be clear and provide me with some guarantee that the service will not be terminated nor fundamental elements changed without reasonable notice and an alternative solution.
• Pricing should be transparent, efficient and competitive.

Assuming the service meets my basic requirements, then I have three basic rules of happiness:-

Rule 1: I want to run the service on my own machine.
This enables me to trial out a service before even considering adopting a cloud version and gives me a last resort fall-back option. I certainly don't want to be in an environment where I can't do this for whatever reason, including vendor failure or discontinuation of a product.

Rule 2: I want to easily migrate the service from my machine to a cloud provider and vice versa with a few clicks of a button.
If the test went well then I'll probably consider dipping my toe in the water. Hence I want an easy to use transfer mechanism for my data (including any code or framework elements) from my machine to an external cloud provider and vice versa. I do not want to learn any specialised skills nor require any technical knowledge beyond pressing a button.

Rule 3: I want to easily migrate the service from one cloud provider to another with a few clicks of a button.
If I'm going to use a cloud service then I want a choice in providers and an easy mechanism of switching between alternatives. I do not want to discover that switching only covers half of the service and fails to cover other elements like the storage subsystem or a messaging service.

For these reasons, I'm not very happy with most of the current cloud offerings.

Cloud Adoption Model

I've been reading some posts about cloud adoption models. So in a blatant bit of recycling from February this year, I once again bring you, the now renamed (from Utility SaaS to "Cloudy"):-

Cloudy Maturity Model
(click on image for larger size)

P.S. This model is simply a humorous diversion and I don't want to discourage people from thinking about real adoption / maturity models.