Evolving clouds

It seems to me that cloud stuff is now merging with lots of others into what we might call "nexgen IT platforms" (no doubt someone will call it "IT3.0")

Client/server evolved to Software As A Service reducing the demand for desktop resources and faster upgrades; Shared Services Centres provided secure off-site execution services enabling faster upgrades; Virtualisation reduces the number and variety of servers and power demand also enabling faster upgrades; Green hardware reduces power consumption ....

Migration paths are now key; scope for consultancy ;-)

More web-based services I'd pay for

Back from another holiday; it's serious stuff. This time in Argentina, half-way around the world for that magical music-dance experience called Argentine Tango.

I've been learning this complicated dance for nearly ten years. "Learning" is understatement, as that - to me at least - implies you could learn it from a book or a website. But it is physical, too; your body has to be under control in ways most of us cannot easily achieve without a lot of practice. How controlled? Enough so the leader -usually the guy - can indicate to his follower - usually the lady - the intended direction, energy, and length of their next movement; and it is their next movement as it needs to be taken together and be empathetic with the mood and feel of the music; and the guy's leg and feet may need to be doing something different in order to set up the next move etc.; and all smooth .... Not much scope for web-based services here - at least not in real-time.

But it is often taught and coached in Spanish; so there's a raft of language-translation options that might help.

And most of the best teachers and coaches hail from Buenos Aires or nearby, brought up on the refrains and mythology of tango, its musicians, dancers, and venues. Much more scope for web-based services to help plan and support the experience.

And you know what? GSM has reached Buenos Aires so my Vodafone kit - well voice and text, not yet the 3G stuff, works out there so less need to carry a second handset with a local SIM card. We'll soon be able to put the Tango Map (with venues for teachers, shows, and milongas) onto Google maps and navigate our way around BsAs without paper. And the restaurants, sights etc.

Next time, perhaps?

Frank (Frank@vecta5.com)

Web-based services I might pay for

I've just come back from holiday; lots of sun, superb food and wine etc. and, of course some sightseeing in a foreign place. We've been to the area before so knew quite a lot about it, how you might get to some places, and where to go to get boat/bus timetables, tickets and so on.

Some things would have saved us time or reduced anxiety:

What would our hotel room really look like - and out to?
What exactly were the baggage limits?
Exactly which area of the airport car park had spaces?
Was our plane due to leave on time?
Which gate was it likely to leave from?
Which was our driver for the hotel transfer?
When and where from did the hotel courtesy bus collect from the town centre?
Where was the bus timetable for services to ...?
What exactly is the Italian for "two tickets to ..."?
What exactly is the Italian for "where does the bus for ... leave from"?
Where was the boat timetable for services to ...?
What exactly is the Italian for "where does the boat for ... leave from"?
And numerous more things.

No big deal that a phrase book, friendly natives, and a bit of patience cannot sort out, I agree; but many of these could create a service opportunity.

But you did not witness the near panic in the departure area when passengers anxious to get on their flight home discovered that the queue from passport control was hardly moving as a single diligent border guard struggles to check documentation without the aid of his computer. Several hundred people speculating - as a group - on what would happen if they missed their flight made for a potentially ugly situation.

The airline probably knew there was a problem when more than half their passengers did not turn up for boarding and, with hundreds of bags on-board, would wait, albeit impatiently.

Airports / airlines don't help in these circumstances by announcing "final call" when they are closing their check-in desk; and "boarding" when they are just calling you to the departure gate.

Wouldn't you pay to know that your aircrew knew there was a problem and were looking out for you?

There must be a load of "big deal" services that I would pay for; and many more "smaller deal" ones from the first group that I'd consider paying for.

Maybe I have to wait a little while for MyGuardianAngel.com to come along?

Frank (Frank@vecta5.com)

Blogs and "blogs"?

Don't you just love a blog that is only written as a political stunt? To be thought cool when you're really out of it?

I was referred to one today; a government minister writing an entry recording a success. Not much more than ten words and three of those were a link to the official Press Release!

Blogs are great at recording/sharing thoughts on any number of subjects; allowing an audience to build on / shout down the idea. They are not so good when used for crude PR.

Or are they?

Frank ( Frank@vecta5.com )

Web-based Services; which will succeed?

Taking the old 2*2 approach favoured by Strategy Consultants, we should have web-based services that save us time, allow us to do something, or both.

All have value, so we should be prepared to pay.

One service I came across recently translates a piece of foreign language text into my preferred language. Nothing new there? Yes, when the foreign text is captured using the camera in my mobile phone and the translation comes back within a few seconds. A step closer to holding up our phone as someone speaks in the foreign language and we hear it through our Bluetooth earpiece almost in real time. IBM have done that? Sure but let's see it in the street.

More useful; essential to some; is when the phone is in the hand of dyslexic who annot read a vital sign or instruction. What a boon to have a "translation" into speech delivered over the earpiece!

Another twist in this series is to take a photo on the cellphone and have the phone reshape it and sent it off to our favourite social networking site - that's cool, too.

Many more to come, I'm sure.

Frank (Frank@vecta5.com)

Web-based services are coming

I recently had the pleasure of attending an event that explored some of the opportunities and challenges involved in a world in which web-based services become intrinsic to almost everything we will do.

That event, hosted by SAP and attended by a number of leading experts from a number of well-known traditional and new wave businesses, progressively looked at:

• Moving beyond software as a service, so infrastructure, even aspects of identity, might be offered as services over the, increasingly mobile, web;
• Where the "killer apps" might emerge in this new world;
• The role, if any, to be played by the semantic web in allowing automated service discovery to facilitate new mash-ups etc.

There are numerous challenges, of course, but if the complaints logs in any number of contact centres are taken as a sign of the opportunities, then disruptive innovation will continue to cause headaches for technology businesses from IBM, Microsoft, and even Google to all sorts of services businesses, including even eBay and Amazon.

There's more; take a look at Frank's take on IRF2008

Frank ( Frank@vecta5.com )

SaaS and stuff

Some years ago, before the bubble burst, I was quoted in the UK's Financial Times. That article was about the likelihood of success for Application Service Providers.

As I recall, I argued that the ASP model was flawed for two reasons.

First, software was rarely, if ever, produced to a consistent standard. The version you opened on Tuesday might be significantly different from the one you used on Monday. Enough of an issue if it was the formatting of a flyer about a social event; more if it was a critical business calculation; and so on. Trust matters.

Second, few users had the bandwidth to support the more complex applications that were being touted as the most likely offerings. Performance matters.I thought only very complex, very expensive packages could effectively be delivered using the ASP model.

Now we have software being delivered over the web as a service; is it the same? was I wrong?

My impression is that the successful SaaS deliveries are new products that use web services, rather than old products re-engineered; much as Excel designed for Windows vanquished the previously dominant 1-2-3 designed for DOS and adapted for Windows.

Successful new products add things that are only possible in the new environment and don't have lots of baggage from features that no longer work as well.Where's this going?

We are being offered software as a service; but now we are also being offered infrastructure - storage, processing, etc - as a service frmo the cloud. It's new, it's shiny, it's cheap - just get out your credit card and you're off. A start-up service provider has never been able to enter the market so easily. Even Microsoft is begining to adapt once more.

And we are not just talking software or communications services. Pretty soon, on a (smart) cellphone, car PC, home TV, or game console near you, you could offer and receive a host of services built and delivered in this way.Which will survive? What are the issues?

More next time.

Frank ( Frank@vecta5.com )