Has the WebOS Finally Arrived? 227
SphereOfInfluence writes "Dion Hinchcliffe over on ZDNet declared in a new post that the Web OS has finally arrived and that businesses and IT departments must adjust to the fact that everything's starting to move to the cloud. He cites John Hagel's so-called big business shifts of the 21st century and claims cloud computing, crowdsourcing, open APIs, Software-as-a-Service are the future of the workplace. He goes on to present a compelling visual model of the Web OS circa 2009 and examples to back up some of the statements."
Head out. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wait a minute. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's just another person predicting a paradigm shift that just won't happen due to inertia and unperceived limitations.
By the way, ewww.... Carebears.... I think I have to go take another shower, and check my glucose levels... ick....
Some issues with "the cloud" (Score:5, Insightful)
Beware the perils of outsourcing.
If you are using a 3rd party to host corporate data, make sure:
* it meets all legal and regulatory requirements you must meet, guarenteed
* it has performance and uptime you need, guaranteed
* it is responsible for break-ins that are beyond your reasonable control, even if they are beyond its reasonable control. If you can't get a guarantee, pick another vendor or buy an insurance policy to cover you from lawsuits if customer data is compromised
* you can keep backup copies of corporate data in a meaningful format, in case the vendor goes belly up. "In a meaningful format" typically means a published format, but it could be a proprietary format which is shared by many vendors. Open format is many times better than proprietary.
Depending on your needs and size, it may literally be cheaper to pay an outside vendor to "clone" their infrastructure at your shop and train your IT dept. how to use it, so you can keep everything under your control. If, for example, regulatory rules prevent you from shipping your data to Google, you could hire them to build a mini Google server farm inside your firewall and have it index your data and offer "yourbrandhere-Google-powered" web-based "office" applications.
Another option is to use in-house or, if you prefer, outsourced virtual servers which you control access to.
Finally, there's the default option of "keep doing it they way you are doing it now." That option should never be off the table until a better option presents itself.
Diskless workstations at last? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been working for over 20 years with various people who proclaim the dawn of the Era Of The Diskless Workstation is upon us. Cloud computing seems to be another instance of this class. I predict it's going to NOT be the "next big thing". The next big bubble of bullshit is more like it.
Re:Flashing lights and the death of crap IT (Score:5, Insightful)
The "people who should fear clouds" are the people whose network connection is not 100% (and I don't mean 99.999999999999%) reliable.
And let's not forget that all your data is now in the hands of somebody else, who is almost certainly subject to the USAPATRIOT Act.
Can you say "idiotsourcing"?? (Score:3, Insightful)
I am sick and tired of pie in the sky thinkers who think they know more than their actual abilities clearly indicate.
No technology is an "end all be all", and that includes web technologies as well. Each have its own unique strengths and weaknesses. Also, any time I see words like "crowdsourcing", I want to vomit simply because they continue to try to minimize the process of solving ideas and building real products. Personally I think that in the next 50 years, the time right now will be remembered as when business managers were able to walk the earth freely assuming that they know everything. In time, however, their companies failed because they contribute very little to the overall process of creating a business or product. MS learned this very painful lesson first hand with Vista (aka No amount of business marketing/technique solved poor development), and hopefully they have corrected their issues with Windows 7.
In short.... Real people have to build these "Real" technologies, and we understand that each technology is not perfect. Meaning, the "Web OS" will never a reality unless people are willing to compromise on functionality simply because fat clients will almost always trump any web app simply due to sheer amount of resources and options available to it.
Re:Flashing lights and the death of crap IT (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who should fear clouds ...
The people who should fear clouds are the people who want their data in their own hands, and don't trust third parties to handle it for then. It's that easy, and it's what will make SaaS fail.
We write SaaS, and almost all our customers ask us where we store the data, and if it we don't guarantee them it is in the country they are from they back off. And we write software for small firms only. Bigger clients want the software and the data stored in their own datacenter. They will not trust the "cloud" for that (and I wouldn't either). Not in the near future at least.
USAPATRIOT Act? Who sez I'm Ameriken? (Score:5, Insightful)
And let's not forget that all your data is now in the hands of somebody else, who is almost certainly subject to laws in their country that give the local government unfettered access to all your company jewels.
There, fixed that for you.
Re:Flashing lights and the death of crap IT (Score:3, Insightful)
And also the tiny little fact that we already have fast and responsive user interfaces locally. I say kill this thing with fire.
Re:Flashing lights and the death of crap IT (Score:3, Insightful)
This has led to a whole load of crap IT dedicated to neither hard-core hardware or to hard-core software...
Ah, I'm pretty sure most IT work is a balance of the two. One does not function without the other.
What surprises me about clouds however is that its often the hard-core folks who are scared of the cloud, they bitch about security and latency but really its because they fear it will make them less important.
I think what they really fear is a loss of control. They're turning their business over to the mercy of the cloud provider, and should it go down, the entire business may go with it. Not only that, but cloud computing is still relatively new and immature as a technology. We can't truly understand all the performance and security implications yet, nor make intelligent choices about architecture, because there's not enough experience with it yet to have confidence in it.
What clouds do is hugely commoditise infrastructure and (in the case of SaaS) those massive package implementations that customise to death a package that would have worked much better without all that consultancy "help".
Consultants are another problem entirely. Cloud computing isn't going to solve it. Hell, I'm not even sure nuking from orbit would eliminate it. Consultancy was brought on because managers wanted to save a buck by only having "expertise on demand". Well, they got it. The problem is, by moving these positions from salary to a to-hire proposition, they've created a market dynamic where up-selling is how freelancers survive. Consultants don't give two shits about the "right" solution because the "right" solution is the most expensive one they can get a signature on. The lack of trust in their permanent employees has ironically led to them being bled dry by people who don't give a shit about the company... They're only there to install or maintain a thing now, in and out in a day.
The people who should fear clouds are the ones who lived off customising packages...
Are you kidding? It's a cash cow! Think of all the money to be made in converting everything to be "cloud compatible"! Think of all the different cloud providers and architectures, each with their own requirements -- and as they fail or are absorbed by other providers, things will have to be reworked again. We don't need to wait for advances in hardware or new software to come out now before we charge an arm and a leg for an upgrade -- the market itself will now churn out reasons and the businesses that subscribe to it will all be locked in. They'll have to spend the money! Where's Microsoft? I'm sure right now they're patenting the hell out of this stuff to ensure that for decades to come, new markets filled with monopolization potential will come to fruition. Cloud Computing: Too Big To Fail. And this, this is the really awesome part: Odds are looking good all your customer data, your databases, the digital lifeblood of your business, will be subject to EULAs that say "We can (in our sole discretion) modify this agreement at any time without written notice to you." Oh god, I think I just creamed myself thinking about how much I can get paid now as an indispensible "cloud consultant".
Re:Flashing lights and the death of crap IT (Score:5, Insightful)
In 1953 when IBM introduced the first computer, who made it work? Ah yes a team of programmers who customized...
When UNIX was first introduced who made things work for your business? Customizations...
When...
Want to see the future? Look at IBM... They have been around over a hundred years, while all of the other companies have disappeared. Look at the latest balance sheets of IBM, cash rich cow! IBM is a "serious playa". And what do they make their money off? Services and customization.
My point is that IBM is a company that adapts to the times. They build what the client wants. And the clients wants customizations. Sure IBM is on the cloud computing bandwagon, no reason for them to not be. After all more customization money for them. After all, who would not want a "private cloud", which is sort of contradictory, no?
The real money will be in the ones who know how to customize the cloud... Oh wait IBM, yes?
Re:Flashing lights and the death of crap IT (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who should fear clouds ...
The people who should fear clouds are the people who want their data in their own hands, and don't trust third parties to handle it for then. It's that easy, and it's what will make SaaS fail. We write SaaS, and almost all our customers ask us where we store the data, and if it we don't guarantee them it is in the country they are from they back off. And we write software for small firms only. Bigger clients want the software and the data stored in their own datacenter. They will not trust the "cloud" for that (and I wouldn't either). Not in the near future at least.
I agree, and to be quite honest I think that cloud computing for private people will make some fiz and then leave quietly, too many people are one of three categories: "dont get it", "don't want it" and "don't care too much to get it".
Re:Can you say "idiotsourcing"?? (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as I can tell, the MBAs are being fed this crap in school. We (as in people I work with, but not me) recently hired (and fired) one of these people, and she literally spoke in pure buzztalk. Attempts to get her to clarify what she meant resulted in more buzzwords and circular logic. She even plagiarized a technical explanation of mine (verbatim) on her blog once, and when we called her out on it (by asking her to clarify what she... er, I said), it was more crap. Good riddance.
The diagram makes me want to hurl. It's like a buzzword flower or something.
"Welcome To The Future!" (Score:4, Insightful)
Subject is quote from "I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus" by Firesign Theatre. Apropo, no?
"businesses and IT departments must adjust to the fact that everything's starting to move to the cloud"
When a pundit* makes a claim that comes true, they collect on the only currency involved -- publicity -- by reminding you at every chance. When they're wrong, which is usually, they simply wait until so few remember that if anyone does bring it up, they can easily explain things away with a line of BS (what they call Believable Statements) that they've developed since realizing they were wrong.
* Pun' dit (n): from
(1) "pun", a statement with a double meaning; those agile enough with language to earn the name pundit can manipulate the double meaning to be polar opposites, such as "is" and "is not". (A recent inquiry into the activities of one such person resulted in their tacit admission in belonging to this class of person, when they asked of the investigators, "Define 'is'.") Through the application of this inclusive exclusion, such a person can claim to have meant what they meant when they said it, and if necessary to have meant the opposite. A truly superior practitioner can not only apply this, but also make it appear as though it were the listener's fault for the confusion.
and from:
(2) dit, from Morse Code "dit" and "dah", known as "dot" and "dash" to non-Morse speakers. This is the equivalent to a single trinary "trit" of information in that it can take either active state (dit or dah), or not be there at all (a wait state). Applied to Boolean, it is the basis of the IF...THEN...MAYBE statement, the 'fuzzy logic' extension of IF...THEN...ELSE. By itself (ie. with no associated data or wait state) the single trit "dit" means nothing at all.
Thus, "pundit" is one who can take a piece of information, useless by itself, and by association with another statement, imply a meaning to it with which they may then later prove that they meant X or that they meant NOT X. For instance, a person at a tech-oriented new organization can make a statement like "everything's moving to the cloud", and when everything doesn't, claim that by "everything" they meant also "everything else", and by "is" they meant "isn't", yielding "everything is moving to the cloud, except everything that isn't moving to the cloud." If it seems that the phrase "some things" would be more appropriate, you are not a pundit. They use "everything" because it can be used as "everything is", "everything isn't" or "everything is except everything that isn't", and changed according to the need of the pundit to appear to be right at the cost of looking like an idiot, or even worse, a politician.
See also "pendantic"; similar to "pedantic" (holding forth at length with the appearance, even if not in actual fact, of being an authority), but taken from "pendulous" for 'swinging back and forth freely, usually something that is very low hanging', and "antic" a comical behavior.
Re:Flashing lights and the death of crap IT (Score:4, Insightful)
Consultants don't give two shits about the "right" solution because the "right" solution is the most expensive one they can get a signature on. The lack of trust in their permanent employees has ironically led to them being bled dry by people who don't give a shit about the company... They're only there to install or maintain a thing now, in and out in a day.
Personally, I spent years trying to be a consultant who implemented the "right" solutions, all the while telling everyone who would listen that I could do a better job and would be better off making half as much money as a permanent employee with budgetary control. It got me absolutely nowhere.
Businesses don't want the "right" solutions. They don't want more stable and longer-lasting hardware and software if it comes with fewer bells and whistles. They don't want to pay for security. Their accountants won't cede an inch of control over purchasing decisions. And they fall for even the most obvious marketing bullshit. Most businesses will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to automate IT instead of letting IT save them hundreds of thousands of dollars by automating the rest of their business.
I have had people with literally zero IT knowledge tell me that they want to do everything by themselves, and then ask me how to do it. If you were a consultant, what would your response to this be?
Re:Backend mining (Score:3, Insightful)
If you encrypt it, data mining isnt a concern.
I'm not sure about that. Cloud computing often means running some operating system image on someone else's hardware. If the application on that image is dealing with sensitive data, it must decrypt it at some point. Once that happens, it is vulnerable to being data mined by the cloud provider.
If you only use the cloud as storage, then encryption does protect you, but most cloud descriptions involve more than just that.
Security issues go beyond just encryption, though. How can you trust that the operating system image that you are running, is what you want to be running? Suppose you generate a CentOS image with your applications on it and give it to a cloud provider. You save a SHA-1 hash of the image to detect tampering. When the image is booted by the cloud, is there anyway for the virtualized operating system to verify that it is running from an image that matches the original hash value? I don't think there is a way to do that now. This means a cloud provider could tamper with your images in ways that are undetectable to you. How much can you trust the calculations of your image now?
Re:Flashing lights and the death of crap IT (Score:1, Insightful)
Fear isn't really the right word to describe our fealings. Amusement would fit better. Everyone who is a few years in the business has seen dozens of these hypes coming and going.
Security is an issue. Reliability is an issue. Latency is an issue. You can't just hide that behind smoke and mirrors and hope that it won't blow up in your face.
There sure are a lot of tasks that will go to the cloud. It won't be everything, it won't even come close. It is just another tool in our belt and the reasonable people will know when to use it.
Re:Flashing lights and the death of crap IT (Score:4, Insightful)
"The thing is, you're not their parents."
Of course not. The example was just there in order to show that there are situations where the honest curse of action is to say "no".
"Your job is to facilitate what they do, not to do what you think is right, you don't generate any revenue, they do."
Not exactly. CIO's job -and even mid management's on a not so large company, is to look forward for the best for the company as is everybody else's in that ranges. And regarding revenue, that's a tough question. On the extreme only direct sellers gerenate revenue, not the case of a, i.e. CEO; and revenue is not all and everything, even if we only consider direct economic implications; operation and capital expenses are other very important elements on that equation.
"but in the end, while you might be the custodian, it's their data"
And then again who is "they"? high management? sales? A company is like a ship and being an employee, company's data is mine/not mine as much as is "Joe's from marketing".
"and you've got to do what they ask you to do wherever possible."
Not at all. My knowledge and responsibility is not that of the sales director; I don't go to sales to tell them how to sell because it's neither my duty nor my knowledge field; they don't come to me to tell how to govern IT because it's neither their job nor their knowledge field. Instead we work *together* to find the best path and tools to reach our strategy goals coupling all our strengths and abilities in that commonal effort.
"Being a dick and thinking you have the right to control what they do with their data is probably one of the reasons you don't get asked until the end in the first place."
That might be the case. Or it might be that they see data and tools as "their" data and "their" tools instead of our data and our tools. Or it migth be that because "they get the revenue" they see themselves as the all and everything in the company and as such they are pretty capable of completly "driving the boat" by themselves so they need no help from anyone else in the company except to do as they say.
"the role of IT is to make the business work better"
Absolutly true and then even more: being managing information an strategic asset of any modern company, IT is in the position of not only "make the bussiness work better" but even open new more profitable ways of doing bussiness within the company. But then, it is not IT the only which has the role to make the bussiness work better; that's the role of everyone else too (and that's against your notion of "I've seen more than my share of absolutely idiotic [requests]": it's their duty to know their bussiness as *not* to ask for idiotic requests as it's our duty not to let them pass through just to avoid confrontation).
"Anything you do which doesn't result in improvements for the business is waste"
As it is waste anything coming from any other corner of the company which doesn't result in such improvements (your "idiotic requests"). We all share that load.