Just a quick warning that I am switching over blogs this weekend so the may be some disruption in the cross over.

I finally got fed up with using Pebble and it's problems, although it served me well I need something with less overhead. So I will be switching over to Wordpress (hoorah!) very shortly.

I won't be moving the older posts over except for those posted so far this month (April). The old posts will be archived and I should be able to link back to them statically.

Note for subscribers using feed readers (bloglines/GReader etc..) - Anyone using the feedburner url (http://feeds.feedburner.com/Folknology) should cross over without changing anything. If you are using a feed on the Folknology domain directly please switch to using the Feedburner url above.

The new blog url is http://blog.folknology.com if you need to visit directly, although I will likely add a redirect from www.folknology.com until we have a full site there later in the year.

I will be posting an intro later today on the new blog, so all being well I will see you on the other side.

regards
Al

So if data is the new currency (microcurrency), Information Technology (I.T) can be seen in a much clearer light. Information Technology therefore moves from a cost centre to a value provider or enhancer. That is I.T if correctly applied will turn your current data currency into an even more valuable microcurrency, a process of adding or leveraging the value of your data via I.T value engineering.

Now remembering of course that the purpose of business is to deliver value to customers, then it would suggest that your I.T should be adding value to your customers using the microcurrency of data. Obviously the data value your are delivering to your customers may not be the only form of value delivery, but it is an important part of the overall package value. For example Amazon.com delivers value in terms of convenience and data (user recommendations etc..) as part of any physical product it ships. Amazon ensures that it’s I.T delivers maximum value to it’s customers and that is how it makes decisions about what I.T to employ. It is also fair to say that different businesses offer different levels of data value to their customers, but it is also key to note that in any given market those maximising the data delivery components of the package are likely to provide greater value to their customers. With the obvious benefits that is likely to bring in terms of competitive advantage.

It is important to consider what information technology one employs or implements when focusing on customer value delivery. Historically much software has been built on the cost model rather than the value add model. Luckily that model is changing and I.T. is now moving towards service provision rather than software licensing. This is important as a focus on service provision is aligned with measured value delivery rather than some mythical ROI estimate that the vendor has conjured. When the service providers and internal value delivery network (formely I.T dept) are aligned on the common goal of customer value creation and or maximization, the business execution becomes economically focused, amplified and agile. The I.T performance can actually be measured, monitored, tweeaked and optimised to gain the maximum benefit for the customer and hence one’s strategic advantage.

Simplistic Delivery model

Data_delivered = IT_strategic + Data_input

and

Service = Human Capital + IT_utility

Thus :-

Customer value delivered = Data + Service + Product ,

= IT_strategic + Data_input + Human Capital + IT_utility +Product

Where product may be omitted in pure service organisations.

I would also suggest that strategic I.T be implemented as a combination of service provision and customization to provide strategic difference, enhancement and advantage. The types of strategic I.T service provision will vary but I would imagine some core services will include collaborative and communication tools alongside a new generation of analytical and even intelligent agents. Strategic I.T also favours multiple sources and customisation rather than single source, as that is how maximum value can be derived, unlike utility I.T where single source provision is likely to remain the norm. One other interesting point to those responsible for strategic I.T, you are likely to be sourcing your service providers much closer to those at the bleeding edge, you are in fact taking part in early adoption which is a very different position to your utilitarian counterparts. Further do not expect these service providers to supply R.O.I collateral like their utility brethren. Your focus must instead be on tacit knowledge capture and sharing, data transformation and leveraging as well as data discovery, these are good candidates for strategic data value advantage.

Innovation and trust will play critical and symbiotic roles for strategic service partners, so expect them to provide creative tooling on top of data standardisation and offer provisions upon scalable and trusted networks. In otherwords, expect these providers to supply innovative tools, yet have their operations running on proven trustworthy facilities or networks, then you get the best of both worlds. Also expect them to offer the flexibility to stage the provisions internally, collaboratively and externally in a seamless fashion. These providers should bend like the wind to your strategic requirements, but also operate symbiotically with trusted infrastructure providers.

As we peer into Information Technology’s crystal ball I see great opportunities for businesses focused on value delivery, greater value for customers and a golden period of I.T innovation around data as a microcurrency. I expect this to be fueled by a heady mix of entrepreneurs and developers, we really do live in interesting times.

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Notes - Product itself may also have some indirect I.T component which could be indirectly expressed as : Product = Raw materials + Service

But I have omitted that for brevity, as I have also omitted the recursive nature of value add in service (service_out = service_factored + service_added)

Although this may not seem like it at first, this post is about computing in the cloud, hang in there to the end it’s worth it. It stemmed from a remark that Mark Oliver made in response to the GCloud post yesterday.

So lets talk about money, once upon a time money was made out of stuff that had real value like gold and silver. When successful folks (todays equivalent of business folks) got lots of it they developed a security problem. Keeping their real money value safe was a job they had to achieve through physical means, like hiding it away in what they considered secure places in their establishments or even on their person. Unfortunately this was a risky business and many of these folks were often fleeced both personally and via their establishments. Some saw this issue as an opportunity and started services to safeguard folks wealth on their behalf. These innovative entrepreneurs of their time created secure buildings to house folks valuables under lock and key, charging for the privilege of securing their goodies. Soon these entrepreneurs thought of even better ways to provide their security services, they would use the funds secured in their premises to create new value which they could loan to other entrepreneurs that had great ideas or big projects requiring investment.

In case you haven’t worked out what I’m talking about yet, the securing establishments were of course what we now know of as banks, the techniques they begun to employ were ‘leveraging’ making more value out of entrusted value, money in this case. So why the hell am I talking about banks and money, this is meant to be an educational cloud computing post no? Which brings me to my point, there is actually a very important connection between that period and now regarding value and trust. You see decades before this time if you had suggested to the well to do business folk of the era that they let someone else look after their money, they would have laughed you off their land, probably waving a large pointy stick for effect. But of course things change, folks get used to such innovative ideas and get over their irrational fears.

Well it turns out right now that business data (another form of value) is rather similar to where money was all those years ago. Innovative cloud computing entrepreneurs are suggesting that maybe they would be better looking after the businesses data than the businesses themselves, in many cases they have good reasons to do so. They can specialise in securing such data better than any individual business because they are in the ‘looking after data’ business. Many businesses are however waving pointed words at the evangelists representing the new Data vaults, chasing them away as fast as they approach. This will of course change and many businesses are already seeing through the thin veneer of change to reap the operational benefits of concentrating on their business instead. Indeed the more entrepreneurial Data Vaults are also now playing the leverage card whereby data entrusted with them is being leveraged to create further and greater value enabling them to offer lower cost (even free) data services.

So what I am suggesting here? data = money? Not quite, but your data is valuable just like money, I would also suggest that just like the money which you entrust your bank with, is very similar to how you should treat your data. That is come to terms with the fact that the right third party is likely to do a better job of securing or leveraging that data than you could ever expect to. So the question for yourself is really just who you trust with it and under what terms would you feel comfortable. What you should not do is chase those that have already had the vision to see this with sharp pointey sticks, instead do your self a favour and engage them in conversation and confront your fears..

Ok I know it’s April fools day and maybe I should be posting pranks, but something has been really bothering me about the cloud computing situation. Amazon are literally running away with the jewels and the other big players just seem to be standing around watching. Well thats not strictly true, IBM have mentioned their ‘blue cloud’, and we Know Microsoft have their own ‘live cloud’ plans (although not enumerated), Microsoft could also be acquiring Yahoo as a means to extend their cloud offering according to some sources. So where the hell is Google in all this? Surely they will take a hand in the cloud computing game, yet we hear the deafening sound of silence from them. That means to me (just like it would for Apple) that there is something huge going on, thinking differntly and with alternate business models, that is what this post is about.

I’m not alone in thinking that Google may do things differently with their cloud offerings, Winer thinks they will go with the freemium model (free and payed premium options) unlike Amazon’s AWS which is pay only. Freemium makes a great deal of sense for Google and is a model they obviously like, just take a look at Google Apps, it follows the freemium model perfectly. Google also has a history of doing free first and finding a business model after. In terms of business models there are a number of suggestions. Winer suggests reduced cost for Google technology acquisitions, the cloud acts as a combined VC/Technology platform, thus when they acquire successful implementations on their platform, integration into Google becomes a breeze. They also gain mindshare allowing educational establishments to use their cloud for free, becoming part of the curriculum. There is also a huge identity battle going on right now with Microsoft,Yahoo etc.. this move could deliver a fatal blow to the other identity players if the Google cloud use became prolific. In addition successful implementations would likely move to the premium GCloud, bringing in direct revenue. Ok enough speculation around Google’s motive and business models lets crack into how the hell they could do it.

Now if we assume they go the freemium route, they would need a system that can scale with free. This is no mean feat, free can get pretty prolific very fast, if free meant everyone got an EC2 equivalent that could add up to a severe drain on even Google’s resources. This is where I believe Google may ‘think different’, they will need more control and greater scalability without limiting innovation. Also I believe they will want to make it easier to get started than the current AWS offerings, they would need a shorter learning curve. In this sense the GCloud would need to have some basic constraints and familiar development models to attract modern web application builders. So how will they do it, what will the cloud be made of, how will regular web developers use it?

So here is the really speculative part, if we assemble together Steve Yegge’s Next Big Language (NBL) and his recent project G-ROR (No not Ruby On Rails, it’s Rhino On Rails) as well as his top secret project NBE (Next Big Environment?) we can pick up some important clues. This are useful for several reasons:

1. Google intend using this stuff internally to build apps (at least prototyping them)
2. It is a perfect vehicle to build google API infrastructure into (GData,Search,OS..)

So what is NBE? My guess is that NBE is a combination of Java Virtual Machines (JVM) plus supporting Google API libraries with security wrappers. Here is how it could work; Google’s equivalent of EC2 would be a Cloud Virtual Machine (CVM), this CVM can run any suitable Java byte code that has been built with the CVM toolkit. The CVM toolkit does some sanity checking etc..to prevent abuse. Each CVM acts like a secure independent system (note - not operating system) isolated from the others with controls to enable you (or Google) to start, stop and control it remotely via a CVM API. These CVM instances will of course run in the Google managed datacentres.

So how will developers build the CVM apps? To start with I believe they will use G-ROR, a rails like development platform that includes an equivalent to active record for GData, allowing data to be stored in the GCloud transparently. It will be a development model that many are already familiar with, one which has already shown itself to be popular and very quick to get up to speed with. The main difference will be that the programming language (initially) will be Javascript rather than Ruby, this will appeal to an even wider developer audience, Google loves javascript in case you haven’t noticed - NBL?.

So there you have it, that is how they could deliver cloud computing ABC economically and with the constraints/controls required for a freemium model. They could run numerous CVM instances per server to make the whole infrastructure scalable and financially viable.

I think they could also offer premium CVMs, with extra features (more memory, dedicated processors etc..) building ontop of the JVM/CVM. They could for example offer existing server side language choices from the JVM such as JRuby, Jython, Groovy and Scala to name just a few. All of these compile down to Java byte code and could thus run on the CVM platform just by adding the required support libraries. And guess what, that would make Google’s CVM one of the most language accessible cloud platforms around, just look at how appealing that could be to the web developers everywhere (NBE?).

Of course this is all just idle speculation, but there may be a grain or two of truth to it. Does this Google cloud offer a developer’s silver lining ? I would be interested in what you think, does this idea appeal to you as a developer? Is what I am talking about severely floored? I am completely nuts?,I wanna here you thoughts, go on let loose…