Building an Interoperability Layer ...

Over the last few years, the question of portability in the cloud computing world, has been growing steadily louder. I tackled this particular issue at OSCON in 2007. It is good to hear that Tim is advocating the building of an "interoperability layer".

With one exception, the only way that we can achieve such portability in the cloud (whether at the application, framework or hardware end of the stack) is to have open sourced standards, where the standard is a fully operating open sourced piece of software.

The Open SDK for Google's AppEngine is a fledgling example of this concept. The Open SDK is the standard and AppEngine merely one implementation of it. Within a few days of its release, it had been re-implemented elsewhere.

Open source is an essential part of portability. Though I'm supportive of the general aims of groups like DataPortability, I'm opposed to their approach. Focusing on "open standards" diminishes the value of "open source" and provides a simply marketing tool for describing a computing cloud as "open". This approach may well lead to more not less lock-in. Open standards are necessary for portability but they are not sufficient for it.

Now an open sourced standard doesn't mean that what is built upon it has to be open sourced. However as we move towards a more service based economy in IT, this is likely to become more common. This shouldn't be seen as somehow diminishing the software industry, but instead allowing for the creation of entire new industries based upon an ecosystem of competing providers. Such competitive utility computing markets will require monitoring and compliance services and allow for exchanges and brokerages. Innovation within those providers will occur at the operational rather than the product level, with competition based upon price vs QoS (quality of service) rather than feature set. This will allow for more efficient use of resources, a more effective balancing of supply and demand, and further innovation within society.

This move towards commoditisation of ubiquitous and defined services isn't a negative thing. It's going to create a wealth of opportunity, as long as we avoid the interoperability disaster of different clouds all built on different "secret sauces" with no open source standards and hence no functioning marketplace.

Few companies are ready to enter this world which competes on service rather than product. Few are ready to encourage competitors and to create an ecosystem.

This is an opportunity that is ripe for harvesting - "Carpe diem"

Ready, Steady, .... Dither ....

I first came across BungeeLabs at Web 2.0 Expo (April 2007), when I was presenting a re-run of my earlier talks on commoditisation, competitive utility computing markets and SaaS.

After handing over several T-Shirts of pre-shaved Yaks, I had a long discussion with them over why I thought their decision not to open source was a mistake and my company's plan to release an open source federated grid at OSCON'07.

So I was interested to read recently that BungeeLabs have "announced federated hosting to expand adoption of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) among enterprises" which will enable users to "self-designate the hosting location"; that's good news. They've also got round to looking at that open source question again.

BungeeLabs have a chance of creating a small piece of an enormous pie (rather than all of a small one). This opportunity depends upon them moving quickly to open source, encouraging other providers to setup as competitors and hence creating an ecosystem with users choosing and swapping between hosting providers.

If they get such an ecosystem up and running, then once it reaches a certain size of providers and consumers, it will become self sustaining. Huge new opportunities will arise in the management and maintenance of this marketplace. The utility hosting aspect is small fry when compared to the potential exchange, brokerage and futures opportunity.

Technically this is all fairly easy, however, it does take a significant force of will and conviction to make such a move. They have left it late to make such a move and a big player may enter this space before they can get started, I wish them good luck.

Fortune favours the bold, opportunity is fleeting and don't dither!

What's the future ...

The golden era of the internet has been built on a culture of open source. This culture has removed barriers to adoption of technology and heralded in an age of unprecedented innovation in society.

As technology has become ubiquitous, we have tended to view it as more of a commodity, a common and re-usable component or service.

We are now seeing the growth of a service based economy (SaaS) and more service oriented approaches to development. These changes will encourage further innovation and open the door to competitive utility computing markets, more effective and efficient usage of resources, portability between providers and competition based upon service rather than product.

This is a living nightmare for those who have seen their competitive advantage as being their technology. Many are simply not prepared for competition based upon service.

As with Google, Microsoft has now entered the field with the launch of their Mesh. I'll note :-

• there is no open SDK (yet) with the Mesh, the backbone of the technology is 100% Microsoft.
• the Mesh is described as a platform for the web equivalent to how windows was for the PC.
• it provides many opportunities for collaborative business benefits (a highly attractive feature for adoption).
• Microsoft has a strong channel of ISVs and is looking for ways to support this.
• it describes a future hybrid model between in-house and cloud infrastructure (the P2P aspects seem to go beyond file sharing).
• it can mesh multiple devices and the cloud, and presumably allow ISVs to become resource providers (hence creating a marketplace within the Mesh).
• they are seeding this Mesh with their own significant infrastructure.

What we don't know is whether Microsoft will be adopting an open approach, encouraging an ecosystem of providers and competing solely on service.

Interesting times lie ahead ...

More *OA with your *aaS?

Hot on the heels of * as a Service is the new and exciting name game of * Oriented Architecture.

This time, the game is a bit more tricky as you need to redefine old terms in order to allow new terms to fit in. So Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is no longer about Service Oriented Architecture but instead about the use of acronyms like SOAP & BPEL, excluding other acronyms like REST & RIA

Lost? You should be.

This new package holiday of confusion even comes with colourful jargon like:-
"On a cruise ship, the WOA folks would be the recreation directors, chefs, entertainers, and cruise directors making it a fantastic journey. The SOA folks are working down in the hot, noisy engine room, making the ship go forward.".

Wow, let's hope you end up with the fun loving recreation people rather than those smelly old engineers (see figure 1 & 2).

Figure 1 - A typical recreation loving WOA Architect.
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Figure 2 - A typical hidden-in-the-engine-room SOA Architect.
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(Scenes of Morlocks and Eloi from the The Time Machine.)

For anyone requiring a bit of sanity, let me simplify it all for you.

Software as a Service is a delivery model for providing software. In today's world, the software stack is undergoing commoditisation from a product based economy (i.e. Software as a Product) to a service one (i.e. Software as a Service). This can be at any level of the stack including but not limited to application, data, framework and hardware, hence all the derivative *aaS's.

Service Oriented Architecture refers to the use and construction of services (or common, higher order components) in the construction of new services or products. The important things to remember are architecture (a deliberate or planned approach) and oriented (organised around) and services (using services). In other words, a deliberate or planned approach organised around using services.

These services might be internal or external or they might be SOAP based XML or RESTful web services using a REST architectural approach. The other *OA variants are simply subsets of SOA.

This is where the pantomine usually starts; "oh no they're not, oh yes they are" and so on. To avoid this argument, simply raise your hand if you are using an ROA or WOA. Now drop your hand if it uses services of some form or another. If you've still got your hand up, you're a *OA variant that is not a subset of SOA and I'd like to hear from you.

As for the hip and cool cruise directors and the engineers hidden in the depths of the dungeons, I prefer the somewhat less controversial terminology of Pioneers (Eloi) and Town Planners (Morlocks) when describing the people who deal with different types of organisational activities (see figure 3).

Pioneers explore the unknown and boldly go whilst Town Planners build cities. Both use common services if they've got any sense.

Figure 3 - Less controversial roles.
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Preparing for XTech ...

XTech is in two weeks time, so I've been busy preparing my talk.

As part of the process, I've provided a preliminary paper on the topic I'll be covering.

What's your perfect job?

Recently, I was asked the question: "if you went back to working for a company, what would be your ideal or perfect job?"

Obviously this will change with time, but today it would be a role which played to my strengths and interests both in management, strategy, innovation and commoditisation. So I wrote down my perfect job and discovered that it doesn't exist ... yet.

To make matters more complicated, the two roles it would work alongside - Chief Innovation Officer and Chief Planning Officer - are rare themselves.

Fortunately for me, the life of a freelancer is one that you create yourself. It's less of a job and more of a lifestyle. If you want to find out more about Going Solo, then I'd recommend attending Stephanie Booth's conference.

Still, at least it's interesting to know what it would be. What's your ideal or perfect job?

U.S. vs us ...

In some European technical circles, the U.K. is sometimes considered not relevant to Europe and just a poor cousin of America. This poor cousin attitude is often reinforced by the claims from numerous bandwagon hopping analysts that if you want to make it big then you need to go to Silicon Valley.

Contrary to such blatant stereotypes, the U.K. (and Europe as a whole) has a thriving technical and entrepreneurial community with companies such as Dopplr, Last.FM and Xing to mention but a few.

Despite this, the government body UK Trade & Investment, has provided financial support to web mission 2008 for "20 UK Web 2.0 companies [to] travel to San Francisco to explore new opportunities for growth with key people in Silicon Valley".

As Ryan points out, whilst the intention is good, the whole web mission basically declares that "we don’t have what it takes over here”. The reality is we do, so why not invest in a U.K. based activity and promote the start-up culture here?

Same old, same old ...

John Maynard Keynes once observed that;

“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.”

I happen to agree. The works of J.M. Keynes, Adam Smith and J.K. Galbraith are all founded on the belief that the market is merely a tool for society and not a replacement for it. Unfortunately in the last few decades we seem to have lost that message.

Our Government is determined to dispose of the 10 percent tax rate (a key part of a progressive tax system), despite fervent opposition and evidence of the harm it will cause to the common people. At the same time that it is penalising the common people (or society), our Government is quite happy to bail out the reckless gambling of the banking community (and the market). It's enough to send Sidney Webb spinning in his grave.

Though this wicked change will harm the poor, I want to take a moment to remember an upcoming anniversary of another wicked act, our treatment of the poisoned people of Camelford.

If you are unaware of this incident, let me remind you. In July 1988, the then government was rapidly privatising a number of industries for reasons of political dogma. During this time, 20 tonnes of aluminium sulphate was dumped into the wrong water treatment tank at Lowermore.

The fresh drinking water for over 20,000 homes in Camelford suddenly turned into a poisonous cocktail. Despite livestock dying and peoples' hair turning blue, the soon to be privatised water authority insisted for several days that everything was safe.

Over the following few years, a government appointed health group investigated the incident and concluded that there was no long term health affects. The medical conditions being suffered by the residents of Camelford, such as memory loss, hair loss, joint pains and general exhaustion were not due to poisoning but were instead caused by anxiety and the mass hysteria resulting from articles in the popular press. This conclusion was gibberish and a convenient whitewash during a time of intense privatisation.

The residents of Camelford have never been properly compensated, their treatment has been appalling and no-one really knows what the long term health effects are.

Had the Government at that time cared more about the common people (or society) as opposed to its privatisation programme (and the market) I wonder whether the outcome would have been any different.

The answer is obvious, but it does also question what has actually changed since then.

It's time things did.

More from less ...

In 1970, at its Palo Alto Research Centre, Xerox had arguably assembled one of the most creative groups of computer scientists the world has ever seen. This team created a computer system that most would consider to be more than a decade ahead of the rest of the industry. Email, laser printing, graphical user interface and a mouse. No-one else came close. Over 1500 of these computers were in active use within Xerox

So why doesn't Xerox own the computing industry today? As Steve Jobs famously described, they effectively “grabbed defeat from the greatest victory in the computer industry".

Whilst PARC played its role and brought the future to Xerox, the senior management of Xerox failed spectacularly to take advantage. The more I research into this subject, the more I discover that this is not an isolated incident. This phenomenon appears to be widespread. Whilst failure is an intrinsic part of the process of innovation, and that includes failing to act or implement an idea or take advantage of it, there are also many often unnecessary obstacles in its way.

Despite senior executives calling for more innovation, in most organisations it doesn’t seem to get an easy ride. Reasons for this include a lack of experience with radical innovation projects at senior levels, a growing mismatch between R&D productivity and cost, and a disparity between how long innovation takes and the immediate demands for ROIs. Added to this are common excuses used to stonewall innovation, from the ever faithful tyranny of current strategy (“it's not core”), to arbitrary financial hurdles (“it’s not worth our time”). Even if your innovation manages to navigate this minefield, it often receives the coup de grace from internal politics or simple fear.

As Machiavelli once said;

"the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order".

Almost everyone who has ever tried to do anything innovative in a large organisation has at some point collided with the organisation as "super tanker" metaphor; we might have no idea what lies ahead but we certainly can’t (or more likely won’t) change course quickly.

I've become increasingly convinced that what CEOs should be crying out for is not more innovation but fewer self-imposed obstacles.

Now that is something they can fix.

Here comes the farmer ...

In 2005, I started an ambitious project to build a utility based development environment, which was successfully launched in early 2006.

Back in 2006, I described the service as a "platform for developing SaaS like apps in the future". This service was identical in concept to Google's recently released AppEngine, except that we used JavaScript and our plan included the open sourcing of the entire stack and not just an SDK.

Within our service both code and data were stored as portable objects. The open sourcing of the product was planned to provide alternative places that you could port to. I nicknamed this concept FaaS or (Framework as a Service), though Robert did warn me that we would just end up with a lot of aaS.

He was right.

For anyone confused by the abundance of terms like DaaS, PaaS, IaaS, HaaS and so on, the reality of what is happening is very simple.

Any X as a Service simply refers to the commoditisation of the computing stack from a product based economy to a service one. End of story.

A key part of this transition is that we move to a service economy that competes on service rather than product. Such a transition has enormous benefits for society in terms of innovation (I'll talk more about that later in the year at Web 2.0 Strategies). However this is a difficult transition for those who have always seen their product as the source of advantage.

In a service economy, SLAs are not as important as portability between providers. Without such portability you will remain still stuck in a product based economy, albeit one that you can rent over the wire. The companies who accept that service is the key to competitive advantage in a service economy will have no problem embracing this; those who believe their technology is their "secret source" will always have problems adapting.

Where for example, two years since its release, is the alternative provider for the Amazon patented S3 environment?

Like it or not, we are moving towards a world where ubiquitous IT activities will be provided by utility computing markets. Providers will openly compete based upon price vs QoS (quality of service) and services will be defined by open sourced standards.

A lack of open source was one of the things which concerned me about BungeeLabs offering. Now I gather from James Urquhart's blog that Intuit has entered the fray with its own platform which builds upon QuickBase's database and workflow applications. Whilst Intuit are making positive noises towards portability, the way to actually achieve this is through multiple providers and easy switching between them.

In my view, if Intuit want to have any form of real lasting impact in the shift towards a service oriented economy and avoid being another "also ran", they should open source their entire offering immediately and take an approach of competing on service.

Words are grand, but as per Aesop's fable of the farmer and the crane ...

... actions speak louder.

P.S. If you're thinking why would an established company even consider such a route, I'd recommend reading the section on, "Why Great Companies Can Fail" in Christensen's book, "The Innovators Dilemma".

P.P.S. If your product doesn't become the open sourced standard in a service oriented economy, someone else's will.

One Social, one not ...

This morning I caught up with Stefan whose project Soocial is really starting to take off. This is fantastic news, they're a wonderful bunch of people and hopefully they'll become the internet superstars they deserve to be.

That was the social or good news.

The anti-social or bad news came in the form of an article by the Washington Post on the use of waterboarding in team building exercises. Apparently the assembled sales team were told:-
"You saw how hard Chad fought for air right there. I want you to go back inside and fight that hard to make sales".

What planet do these people come from? I wonder if Chad's medical insurance covers acts of management insanity?

What next?
"You saw how hard Chad fought to avoid being shot. I want you to go back inside and fight that hard to make sales."

What happens if Chad doesn't quite make it?

Figure 1 - The future of team building.
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Apparently the general counsel for the firm said that they weren't the mean water boarding company that people think they are. It takes a lot to make me swear, but well who the fuck are they then? I'd hate to meet a really mean company if waterboarding is okay for the nice ones.

He also asked whether this would even be an issue "if it weren't for Guantanamo Bay". Let me think about that one - try, yes it is an issue if you go waterboarding your staff in order to make them work harder.

The best line however is when he talks about how this incident is "going to hurt our image". What about your staff?

Save Chad now before it's too late.
Thanks to molumen and Gerald_G for the public domain clipart that I've used and Marilyn Pratt for spotting this.

FLOSS saves industry billions ...

Apparently, FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) has saved industry over $60 Billion according to this announcement by Standish Group International.

I'm guessing this is just cost savings in license fees and excludes all the amazing new services and innovations created by people in the FLOSS world. I'm guessing, because unlike all the good work which goes into FLOSS, the Standish Group International's report costs $1,000. I hope they weren't commissioned to produce this report.

If they were, then please, next time, commission an open source group or an academic group or an analyst group like RedMonk so it can be published freely.

Of course, in the future, such data will be a freely available commodity. As new mechanisms for data capture and interaction grow (through social networks to web services to spimes) it will become increasingly important for a company to become the canonical source of information about itself. Companies are likely to make a unprecedented shift towards openness and transparency. This will be good for innovation in society but it will obviously upset those who are not willing to adapt or who make their living by selling aggregated company information back to companies.

N.B. That was not a "prediction", it is already happening.

According to the report, the $60 billion in savings only accounts for 6% of the annual spend; so there is plenty more scope for improvement with a bit more investment and corporate collaboration with open source groups.

Excellent news.

Original report picked up from a tweet by Dion Hinchcliffe