Google Chrome OS - I told you so

The Google Chrome OS announcement is a 'I told you so' moment for me. Nothing pleases an analytical mind than when the prediction borne out of analysis turns out to be true. There are enough doubters, doubting motives, timings of this announcement. But I always thought this would happen. Google is not at war with Microsoft, rather it is enabling the uptake of 'the Cloud'. As for enterprises, I see every reason to latch on to this trend. This presents an opportunity for enterprises to free themselves from clutches of desktop OS, its incessant upgrade cycles, security vulnerabilities and limitations it imposes.

I remember a conversation I had with one of my friends regarding the same subject just after Chrome browser came out. When Chrome browser came out, every one was treating Chrome as just another browser and questioning need for one more browser. Then I had stuck my neck out and contended that it was not just a browser but a prelude of things to come. It was indeed a light-weight front-end to a light-weight desktop OS. I was not sure how fast this would happen. It looks like it is happening faster than I thought. And my second contention is that it will enable enterprises move to the Cloud, faster.

In my opinion the consumer market will be conquered by the smart phone and netbook. The enterprises on the other hand will only need netbook class devices than smart phones, but not with the bloated OS of yore. Chrome OS with a netbook class device will be a perfect choice for enterprises. Current legacy can be hauled off to cloud and exposed as a plug-in on Chrome browser. And there is no reason why back-end services, yet to be built and which will reside in the Cloud, need to be provided only by Google. In fact, this Chrome OS - with open standards based front-end, will bring in much more transparency and Independence from OS, for service providers. Chrome OS, in essence is taking desktop OS out of equation within enterprise IT.

Coming to think of Chrome OS, it has potential to change the enterprise IT, the way switching technology changed telecommunications. Now in the days of packet switched network, circuit switching looks so much of a retarded idea, even though it was the only possibility during initial days of telecommunication. But when packet switching became practical it changed telecommunication beyond recognition; changing the architecture and business models. Similarly a computing device capable of doing everything locally and storing all it needed - locally, looks so 'Stone' age in the age of ubiquitous network connectivity and elastic compute/storage capacity. In that sense Chrome OS with a browser front-end is set to change the architecture and business models of enterprise IT forever. Desktop OS had its run, now its time for it to move on and vacate the place for Chrome OS. Mind you demise of dominance of desktop OS does not necessarily translate into demise of Microsoft, the same way the demise of dominance of mainframes did not kill IBM.

Indeed we live in interesting times. We have an year to prepare and fine tune our strategies and architectures. Don't miss on this opportunity.

Oracle's Java

Normally when I refer to 'Oracle' on this blog, I refer to 'Enterprise IT Oracle'. This time I am however referring to Larry Ellison's Oracle Corporation on this blog. It is because its acquisition of one of the significant technologies of 21st century, viz. Java programming language and associated paraphernalia.

This is BIG. Large chunk of enterprise IT is done these days, using Java technology and it is assumed to be 'De facto' and 'open' standard. Now with Oracle's acquisition of Sun, the openness of Java is under question.

What should organisations with large Java investments do? Well IBM is one of those, with large Java investments. Most of IBM's Internet stack under WebSphere brand is based on Java. What would IBM do?

What would other hardware vendors like HP, Dell do? Do we see three hardware blocks emerging? Sun/Oracle, HP/Microsoft and IBM? Where would Cisco/Google servers fit in this scheme of things?

Continuing this analogy would we see three software blocks viz, Java, .Net and possibly IBM's own Java like technology (may be a rehashed EGL with its own byte code) emerging?

Will cloud providers be bound to one of these blocks? If these three blocks start erecting Chinese walls around themselves, in order to lock customers in, then how does one allow seamless movement from one 'cloud' provider to another?

What would be de-risking strategy for enterprises, to avoid a lock-in within one of these blocks, even in an on-premise scenario? Does MDA sound attractive now? Is it the time that enterprises start focusing on separating their intellectual property from execution platforms?

Interesting times. Time to activate your enterprise IT Oracle and see which parts of Enterprise Architecture needs re-looking.

IBM in cloud.

I read about Nick Carr commenting on IBM putting their infrastructure software in Amazon EC2. He is comparing it with IBM's disastrous decision to leave IP rights of Microsoft-Dos with, well, MicroSoft. Is this recent decision really comparable?

In case of PC, in hind sight it appears that IBM had erroneously assumed that their micro-processor based PC was non commoditisable, whereas Microsoft correctly judged that anyone could assemble a PC using off-the-shelf microprocessors from Intel. So Microsoft retained IP on software which it could use to monopolise the commodity PC market.

So the question in this scenario is what is likely to be commoditised? Are EC2 services that unique that no-one else could replicate? What is the barrier to entry?
Certainly not technology. If my memory serves me right, IBM itself is big daddy of virtualisation and what it calls utility computing. It had developed first hypervisor called VM CP, which used to run on S/xxx mainframes. In recent times, I remember using IBM provided Linux image on a mainframe in 2001 to do some personal project (I was trying to do some code visualisation into model using open source tools on IBM provided Linux image.) IBM had provisioned that image in 24 hours.

So what is it? My guess is IBM is using EC2 to hook users onto its IP and then move them to a different Cloud (possibly its own). I think IBM is still not worked out the business model around its own cloud offering for SMB. Not a bad thing. It will surely standardise cloud computing space and make enterprise scale software stack available even to SMBs. It might hasten uptake of private cloud offerings too. So everyone will benefit. It would be interesting to see how this works out in next few years. I am definitely going to watch the progress.