Friday, May 23, 2008

Computing in the Cloud - Paul Slakey – Director Google cebit08


Paul gave an enlightening talk on "Computing in the Cloud"

Gems from discussion:-

1. Soon we will be able to communicate on the web in any language in any time – 67% of internet users not English speaking – translation real time – (ik comment:- tower of babel?)

2. The new imformation supply chain – Energy is KEY…

Scale is like we have never seen before - Storage capacity – becoming unlimited – you tube is currently receiving 10hrs of content per minute – scale matters… google built a datacenter and are continuing to build datacenters around the world….(IK Comment:- is peer to peer goingto make this redundant?)

As you Scale – cost per user less cost per revenue more

Energy is a bottleneck – solar panels are now on all buildings and parking lots – 30% of peak energy needs can be supplied to headquarters… will be the same for datacenters around the world.

Millions are being invested in renewable energy – Google believes renewable energy will be cheaper than coal in 10 years…. Who would have thought that renewable energy and corporate computing linked

3. Democratization of Capabilities
the world is flat – 3 guys in Mackay can compete strongly by plugging into the grid…..

through adwords – ads used to be for big advertisers – auction system has leveled the playing field – where a company can bid for a key word…. David can compete with goliath…easy to work out roi….

Little company using google – can be conceived as a player on a global scale


4. Consumers driving business vs corporate – iphone best examples of consumer innovation…. There is now better innovation at home vs at work.

Vendors need to compete for mindshare. Those vendors who make interfaces easy will win.

Mobile web browser – safari browser 71% - because its easy to use… creating a new market – getting people to access web through mobile device – it is easy –
In India – many wont have a laptop – they will access the web through mobile


5. SAAS – whan is the tipping point

– Connectivity – now going away – broadband cheaper – more people getting access
– User Experience – needs to be easy – quick – one click of a button – easy is going to win.
– Reliability– multihoming for gmail - gmail in more than 1 server and place – more reliable than typical corp gmail service
– Offline access – offline gmail – google gears – any web app and make it available on line. Offline for docs and spreadsheets – steep innovation path
– Security – 10% of laptops will be stolen 60% corp data in nprotected pcs and laptops 68% of corporates laptops most risk
Missing laptops 20,000 names
Agilent – 51000 employees were stolen…..
Clouds at Work in Government (commercial off the shelf)
10/15 us cabinet agency use google search
Thousands using google earth
Who do you trust?

Bankers, accountants, outsources, payroll outsourcing

Can people get compfortable outsourcing their corporate data

SAAS companies like google will need to earn the trust.

6. Google bought POSTINI – start up –

Service you can buy – simple – once up and running works…. Now under google apps brand – customers doing filtering – now have email hosted in cloud.


7. Last thoughts on CLOUDY future

On premise software is not going away –
Innovation will be “in the cloud”
Market will have ++ competitors
Your new employees – are the cloud generation. Digital natives – 11yr old – digital natives – never read instructions – know digital intuitively –

Expectation in workforce – cloud computing will be in the business world….

Where will they be employed?

Google need to earn your trust. Data to be held in a region – to be in area where there is economies of scale…..



SAAS70 –
The iso9000 for saas and the cloud….

Cloud computing corporate arena.
People will buy from someone they can TRUST!!

(ik comment:- For BSI – there is an opportunity for google to sponsor our innovation forums/technology launchpad etc….

(ik comment:-If Google has all this information – have they got more power than governments? Is this a bad thing or a good thing? What happens if google is forced by governments to share data? )

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