Who Is the Microsoft Cloud Boss?
November 10, 2008
Eric Lai, writing in ITWorld.com, tries to answer the question, “Who Owns the Cloud Business inside Microsoft?” With the cloud still forming inside Microsoft, I am not certain there is a definitive answer to this question. For his take, you will want to read his article here. ITWorld uses pop ups that I found incredibly annoying. You may enjoy these, but I found them junky. Mr. Lai identifies these executives as cloud owners:
- If a group “owns” a product or service for on premises installations, then that group will “own” the cloud service as well.
- Bob Muglia’s server and tools division “owns” SQL Server and Windows Server.
- The Office Web version is under the control of Microsoft’s business division.
- Azure is owned by Ray Ozzie.
The most interesting segment of the article was this passage in my opinion:
“I think it makes sense for the original product group to own the product so it can create a vertically integrated strategy,” said Rob Helm , an analyst with the independent research firm Directions on Microsoft. He cited as an example Microsoft’s tactic of offering vouchers to Exchange and SharePoint customers that let them try Exchange and SharePoint Online for free. Helm’s main criticism is that Microsoft has too many cloud services today, with an overlap as a result. He cited the example of SQL Server Data Services , Live Mesh , and its Sync Framework. “How is Microsoft going to resolve this?” Helm asked.
I don’t think Microsoft itself knows.
Stephen Arnold, November 10, 2008
Apple Google Salesforce: Attack Incumbent Market Leaders
November 9, 2008
The flight from central Europe to the autumnal hills of Kentucky was a delight. The flights were filled with happy, loud children. Considerate coach travelers talked loudly and without stop for 8.5 hours. The Delta flight crew served wonderful meals, and the food. Ah, the food–to die for. With so much right with major corporations using their business acumen to acquire Northwest Airlines, I was shocked to read that Apple was resisting IBM’s legal attempt to prevent an executive from quitting Big Blue and falling into the Steve Jobs’s reality distortion field. On one side, Apple a purveyor of expensive gadgets challenging the $100 billion mega-enterprise. Goodness. Then Google with its black eye from its run in with US Federal regulators suggesting that Microsoft and Oracle were off base about cloud computing. You can read about the Apple IBM dust up here. You can learn more about the Google and Salesforce.com criticism of Microsoft and Oracle here. If these links, go 404ing into oblivion, you will be able to find numerous posts about these two unrelated incidents.
I have a different take on these actions, and my view is influenced by my analysis of Delta and its buy out of Northwest Airlines. You probably wonder, “What’s the relationship? Airlines haven’t treated passengers well in a decade or more. Northwest Airlines is a turkey made of aluminum and fiberglass composite. This addled goose has suffered a meltdown.”
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Apple, Google, and Salesforce.com assert that IBM, Microsoft and Oracle are little more than early 20th century thinkers when it comes to cloud computing. The Apple, Google, and Salesforce.com approach is more modern, zippier, and more “right” for the times.
I beg to differ.
The old order is represented by the Delta-Northwest business decision. Two losers don’t often make a financial winner. The investment bankers and consultants make a killing, but the Delta-Northwest tie up underscores the folly of dinosaur businesses trying to cope with a financial climate that almost guarantees that dinosaurs will die. At best, offspring will end up as birds, tiny birds struggling for survival. In Kentucky, a crow and a shotgun are not evenly matched. The shotgun wins unless my neighbor is juiced on white lightning.
IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle are dinosaurs. All three are on the evolutionary path that leads to becoming a bird, maybe bigger than a crow but smaller than a dinosaur. Your reaction to my suggesting that these three companies are in decline is probably, “You are definitely an addled goose.”
Google and Reliability Data
November 7, 2008
Google dipped into its data files on October 30, 2008, and assembled reliability and uptime data. I found the Official Google Blog post interesting because Google does not spray data wildly into the Web-o-sphere. The post was called ‘What We Learned from 1 Million Businesses in the Cloud,’ and you must read it here. The point of the write up was to assert that some downtime is normal. Compared to the downtime of other high profile systems, the Google downtime is very modest. I believe this. The only issue I continue to ponder is what does unschedued downtime do when Google enterprise customers cannot access their email, the documents, Chrome components, or their personalized Google pages? For more on this issue, click here. The most interesting bit of information in the write up was the chart here that compares downtime of Gmail to Microsoft Exchange. Google tosses in a couple of other systems as well, but the real comparison is what Google presents at Microsoft Exchange data. Click here for the chart. Google paid a third party to analyze data from a one million business sample. I believe almost everything Google says, but I trust the open source documents available from the ACM, the USPTO, and the SEC. Without a hard copy of the third party report, we have numbers. I think Google is making a valid point, but these are numbers out of context, and you can make up your own mind about their validity. I am a semi gullible goose who remembers one holiday the phrase, ‘Hello, goose, want to come to dinner?’ I skipped dinner and lived to write this news item.
Stephen Arnold, November 7, 2008
Clouds Merge, Search Challenge Emerges
November 4, 2008
Ben Worthen’s Web log post for the Wall Street Journal describes the “clouds aligning” for Salesforce.com, Amazon.com, and Facebook.com. You can read the November 3, 2008, post here. For me the most interesting point in the write up was this statement, “But once you cut past the hype there’s something pretty interesting taking place. Businesses that write software that runs on Salesforce.com’s “platform” can now have the same software run on Facebook. And they can use Amazon’s services to support this software.”
ZDNet’s Michael Krigsman here also commented on the announcement. The point he made that I noted was: “Salesforce customers not serving a large consumer segment may find the announcement somewhat confusing and irrelevant, since suddenly their business vendor is proudly involved with a decidedly consumer partner.”
The post Web 2.0 marketing wizards at Salesforce.com have shifted their message weapons to blast me with cloud computing speak. Three issues crossed my mind:
- Which of these companies will offer a search service that will make the appropriate information available to users? The lead dog will have some tough technical issues to resolve.
- Amazon.com’s cloud computing infrastructure comes closest to being a potential competitor to Salesforce.com. Salesforce.com may see Amazon.com as a bookseller. Does Salesforce.com see itself as a cloud computing bookseller with the ability to encroach on Salesforce.com’s customers?
- WWGD or what will Google do? Google has dated Salesforce. com, often acting as a cheerleader who refuses to go steady.
The announcement is interesting because it puts in play several forces that were undirected in the enterprise sector or sitting on the bench waiting for a reason to show what each can do. In short, I think this is a the official turbo charging of the buzzword “cloud computing” and it sets in motion some interesting market interactions.
Stephen Arnold, November 4, 2008
Azure: Wit and Optimism
November 3, 2008
I enjoy the Register. The addled goose wishes he were British so his edge has that Pythonesque slant. The article “What Ray Ozzie Didn’t Tell You about Microsoft Azure” is enjoyable and informative. It contains a wonderfully terse description of Amazon’s and Google’s cloud services. The Google description is quite tasty with the spice of shifting the job of figuring out how to use it from Google to the user. Nice point. You must read the full article here. Despite the wit, the write up makes several significant points:
- The cloud is a ragout, not a cohesive system or strategy
- A developer has to deal with a large number of components
- Microsoft might pull this off because Ray Ozzie has worked in this for a long time.
My view is more conservative. I want to see Microsoft deliver before I get too excited or put odds on Microsoft’s chances for success. Google’s been working on its cloud services for a decade, and those are not without their faults. I couldn’t access my Gmail for a time, then my “ig” page was dead too. Whether you agree with me or the Register is secondary to the useful information in its write up.
Stephen Arnold, November 3, 2008
Azure as Manhattan Project
November 3, 2008
I usually find myself in agreement with Dan Farber’s analyses. I generally agree with his “Microsoft’s Manhattan Project” write up here. Please, read his article, because I can be more skeptical about Microsoft’s ability to follow through with some of its technical assertions. It is easy for a Microsoft executive to say that software will perform a function. It is quite a different thing to deliver software that actually delivers. Mr. Farber is inclined to see Microsoft’s statements and demos about Microsoft Azure as commitment. He wrote:
Microsoft’s cloud computing efforts have gotten off to a slow start compared with competitors, and it’s on the scale of a Manhattan Project for Windows. Azure is in pre-beta and who knows how it will turn out or whether consumers and companies will adopt it with enough volume to keep Microsoft’s business model and market share intact. But there is no turning back and Microsoft has finally legitimized Office in the cloud.
My take is similar but there is an important difference between what Microsoft is setting out to do and what Google and Salesforce.com, among others, have done. Specifically, Google and Salesforce.com have developed new applications to run in a cloud environment. Google has many innovations, including MapReduce and Salesforce.com has its multi tenant architecture.
Microsoft’s effort will, in part, involve moving existing applications to the cloud. I think this is going to be an interesting exercise. Some of these targeted for the cloud applications like SharePoint have their share of problems. Other applications do not integrate well in on premises locations so those hiccups have to be calmed.
The big difference between Azure and what Google and other Microsoft competitors are doing may be more difficult than starting from ground zero. Unfortunately, time is not on Microsoft’s side. Microsoft also has the friction imposed by the bureaucracy of a $60.0 billion company. Agility and complexity may combine to pose some big challenges for the Azure Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was complex but focused on one thing. Microsoft’s Azure by definition has to focus on protecting legacy applications, annuity revenue, and existing functions in a new environment. That’s a big and possibly impossible job to get right on a timeline of a year and a half.
Stephen Arnold, November 3, 2008
Exalead: Voice to Text
November 3, 2008
A happy quack to the stylish Parisian who alerted me to Exalead’s voice to text demonstration. To use the service, navigate to http://labs.exalead.com or click here. I entered several test queries and looked at the quality of the ASCII. I was impressed. I was able to get useful hits on my trusty query ‘bush and iraq”. My Google queries worked well too. Keep in mind that the system has processed a chunk of audio and video. The voices in the files are converted, indexed, and made searchable. One nifty feature is that if a video contains several references to the query term, an icon on the play bar allowed me to jump from relevant comment to relevant comment. No more serial listening to talking heads. Two happy quacks for the Exalead engineers who worked on this demo. Several other nice touches warrant highlighting:
- The system can parse a query such as ‘show me videos about iraq’
- Entities are automatically extracted and displayed in a side bar for assisted navigation
- A tab allows you to limit your query to audio, video, video on demand, or the entire suite of content.
For me, the most useful feature was the ability to click the ‘text’ link and see the transcribed text of the news show. Here’s a snippet of the machine converted and transcribed text:
the big apple behind the turntable strolling down the house makes tonight in chicago is craig alexander find your way to the bone bloomer whom you’ve gone and only together since the first of the year the brian james van by achieving their goal of crafting and plain old b. s. rock and roll the show tonight is that the hurricane in kansas city that’s a for tonight’s live music on the east coast air midwest for a look at what’s gone down monday night in the south boston that soars southern music reporter john spellman
My recommendation to Exalead is to start processing more content. I would love to have a transcript of the Google lecture series. A collection of security podcasts would be really useful. I don’t like to listen to 50 minutes of lousy audio to find one or two useful chunks of information.
I usually try to remind the French that folks from Kentucky know how to cook chicken correctly. None of coq au vin stuff. We use lard and whatever is growing behind the compost heap. But in this case, I won’t make any reference to cuisine. I will just say, “Voice to text… well done.”
Stephen Arnold, November 3, 2008 from somewhere in Europe
Microsoft and Cloud Math
November 2, 2008
Long day in a city with no consonants. Cruising the goodies in my newsreader, I noticed Todd Bishop’s “Microsoft Faces Uncertain Financial Future As It Looks to the Cloud.” You will enjoy the story here. Mr. Bishop reports that Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s cloud guru, mentioned thinner margins, which means to me “we’ll make it up on volume.” Then came what for me was the most significant passage in the article:
Those thinner margins could hurt Microsoft’s overall business if cloud computing causes companies to make a big shift away from traditional computer servers. Microsoft’s Server & Tools Business — which sells operating systems, database software and other programs for those servers — has been a financial mainstay for the company. However, Ozzie still sees a big role for those traditional servers inside most companies, even as many applications move online. “People will still run most of their big business systems — the back ends of their big business systems — on premises,” he said.
Two assumptions seemed to fuel Mr. Ozzie’s assessment. First, I am no longer convinced that organizations will want servers “on premises”. The work force demographics favor a more fluid approach to organizing work and the work space. Visit a company run by 20 somethings. What I notice is how few people are working “on premises”. Most of the organizations serve clients and some make things, maybe in a remote land, but the gym shoes and the shirts turn up where they are supposed to be.
Second, I used to think I wanted software on machines I controlled. I moved most of my enterprise software to someone else’s servers, and I just “fired” one service provider and moved data and applications to another server provider more quickly than I could have done this with my own gear. I think other folks will make this shift as well.
The larger question in my mind is, “When.” It is okay to announce new initiative and show demonstrations. Delivering a stable, scalable, reliable product is a different type of work. Microsoft has some housecleaning to do to get Tess’s favorite enterprise software to behave. SharePoint requires certified professionals to do too much manual fiddling to activate basic functions to keep her from growling. Even interface consistency in desktop applications needs work. Some Microsoft professionals have insisted that these are details. That may be true. But if the Azure clouds strike me with a lightning bolt, I will be increasingly difficult to convince that Microsoft can deliver on its promises and make money at the same time. And with the police matter clouding enterprise search, how will that help or hinder the FAST ESP push? There is a difference between announcing and delivering across disparate systems and the cloud when it drifts in.
Stephen Arnold, November 1, 2008
SharePoint and Azure
November 1, 2008
The Microsoft cloud computing initiative is underway and it is early days. My principal concern with cloud computing is that it sounds so compelling. Imagine. Reduce your information technology staff. Get out of the hardware business to some extent. Let someone else worry about upgrading software and stamping out bugs.
According to Arpan Shah’s Web log here, Microsoft SharePoint Services will be part of the Azure Services Platform. You can get more information from Microsoft here. Many details are fuzzy. In the weeks and months ahead, more information will be forthcoming. I have heard that sample code, downloadable executables, and documentation will be provided. Microsoft does a good job of providing information. The challenge for me is finding it.
Before leaving the subject of the link up between Azure and SharePoint, let me capture for my own use the issues that I have with cloud computing in general. (I am an addled goose and this Web log is primarily for me, a digital notepad if you will.)
First, it is expensive to build, deploy, scale, and upgrade cloud infrastructure. I am not sure I can quantify the costs any more clearly than I have in my monographs and studies. CFOs and beancounters don’t understand the non linearity of the costs. I suppose this knowledge will become more widely available after a few of the new entrants in cloud computing explain why their balance sheets are awash in red ink.
Second, the problems of bottlenecking, unexpected faults, and the time required to chase down and figure out problems few or maybe no one has seen before increase over time. Cloud infrastructures are tough to lock down. Every time I turn around a vendor was pushing a firmware update, a point upgrade, or some other piece of software at the data centers in which I was involved. When one of these “fixes” is problematic, I had trouble. What few understand is that the longer the cloud infrastructure operates the more likely there will be unexpected dependencies. These data centers are not workstations, yet many people view them as giant iPods. Crazy.
Third, the client experience is gated by bandwidth and latency. The hottest cloud infrastructure is worthless if the user is trying to access email or some other information via a sluggish network. How stable are network connections in Kentucky? Not too stable. Connectivity is much better in the major European cities. Tokyo is outstanding. But when I have had to work from cities with now vowels in their name, life gets tough. Joburg was okay. Djuma was not. Xian featured great connectivity. Other places in China weren’t so hot, so I used Internet cafes and faced with dial up modem speeds. My guide assured me that the cafe was a broadband hook up. Yeah, right.
What to these three points have to do with Azure and SharePoint. Not much because so far Azure strikes me as a suggestive demo. Down the road, Microsoft will have to deal with SharePoint’s own performance and stability plus the three points I just mentioned.
That is going to be a big, costly job for the folks at Microsoft. The goose issues a gentle quack of support.
Stephen Arnold, November 1, 2008
Google Adds Functionality to Container Documents
November 1, 2008
Chrome is here. Containers are all the rage even though users don’t know what these are. Google’s “controlling Communication within a Container Document” discloses interesting cross boundary functionality. Published by the USPTO on October 23, 2008, this invention by Michael Buerge and a handful of other Googlers says:
A system allows modules associated with different domains to communicate, such as within a container document. To transfer payload data from the first module associated with a first domain to a second module associated with a different domain, the first module adds the payload data as a text string to the URL of a transport module associated with the second domain. This way, the second module may directly access the modified transport module to obtain the payload data from its URL. The second module may likewise add other payload data as a text string to the URL of another transport module associated with the first domain, thereby enabling communication from the second domain to the first.
If a container sounds a bit like a virtual machine, I think you may be interpreting this prose in a similar way. Download US20080263566 here. I am opening this topic in my forthcoming Google and Publishing Monograph that will be available in December 2008 after Martin White’s and my new study Successful Enterprise Search Management from Galatea in the UK.
Stephen Arnold, October 31, 2008
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