Sun CTO Predicts Internet Consolidation Endgame

Romerican writes "C|Net is running an interview with Greg Papadopoulos, CTO of Sun Microsystems, about the Very Near Future where he essential sees the Internet as no longer competitive. He has blogged his belief that the end game is here and nothing is likely to unseat the new world order." From the C|Net article: "It's called software as a service. It really is the running of what we think of as IT through the network. You don't buy software, you buy the consequence of the software. That starts with the small and medium enterprises. eBay, in my mind, is the leading example of small businesses being absorbed by services. Anybody who clicks their store on eBay is in fact consuming a service. They are contributing to a larger-scale eBay rather than them buying some server and sticking it on their desk."

Comments

Erm ...

[B3ryllium]

History shows that the majority of "consolidation" will eventually unwind, fragment, and finally return to something similar to the original way of doing things.

And then it will happen again.

Witness: Mainframe computing to Personal Computing to Thin Client Computing.

Re:Erm ...

[sugarman]

On a long enough timeline, we're all dead. But being able to recognize an emerging trend and capitalize on it in the near future of a 5-10 year plan can be critical to a business.

Characterizing it as an "endgame" may be a extreme, but consolidation of the big players is continuing for the forseeable future.

--sugarman--

Re:Erm ...

[Bozdune]

Exactly. "Thin client" apps are a pretty accurate analog to the ubiquitous CICS business apps of the 1970's that are still floating around today. Fill out a screen. Click a button. Wait for another screen. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Some business apps do very well in such a framework. Others do not. Spreadsheets, for example, don't (there have been "networked" spreadsheet apps for years now, but what is their penetration? Zilch). Yes, sigh, we can code the entire app in Javascript and hide transfers in the background, and "simulate" a desktop app blah blah blah Ajax blah blah -- but that's not workable (I invite you to try; have fun).

Good God, just got curious and queried Wikipedia: "IBM began shipping the latest release, CICS Transaction Server Version 3.1 for z/OS, in early 2005." Somebody pinch me, I'm in a time warp!

Re:Erm ...

[jafac]

History shows that the majority of "consolidation" will eventually. . . .

Does it?

Examples?

Re:Erm ...

[inKubus]

Yeah, but you get the feeling consolidation is what he WANTS, not necessarily what's going to happen. I think a lot of small businesses don't like eBay, which has become a bastion of SE Asian importers and crooks for most commodity items. Sure, you can still find some decent categories that aren't flooded with .01 cent starting bids for trinkets but they are few and far between. The small businessperson innovator is going to go his own way and not follow the crowd any more than possible. There will always be crowd-followers, and that's who Sun will cater to if that's their strategy. But to get the big growth, you need to find the innovators, and those people are not always going to subscribe to the service model. They just don't trust anyone else to do the job right.

Re:Erm ...

[ClosedSource]

Usually it's traditional when making an argument to use an example of something that has actually happened. Thin client Computing has not displaced Personal Computing to any significant extent.

Re:Erm ...

[B3ryllium]

... and neither will the consolidation of greedy corporate service providers displace the stand-alone web service. They will compliment one another.

Re:Erm ...

[ZenShadow]

And you call the web, what exactly?

Oh yeah... Thin-client computing...

--S

Re:Erm ...

[ClosedSource]

I guess you mean web applications or web services rather than "the web". In any case, thin-client computing isn't the same as web services or web apps. Thin-clients aren't conventional PC's running a browser, they boot off the network.

But definitions aside, web apps have not significantly displaced PC applications either. Most significant web apps offer new functionality that never existed on the PC because the functionality requires non-local resources or a large group of individuals (e.g. eBay). Use of the Google search engine is probably 2 or 3 orders of magnitude greater than use of Google's "office" web apps.

Re:Erm ...

[ZenShadow]

It's a matter of perspective.

Web sites (including straight HTTP file service) is certainly a thin-client application. Just because a system boots locally rather than over the network, does not mean it's a traditional "fat client". And this is coming from someone who builds primarily diskless systems for a living. ;-)

I would venture to guess that outside of games, about 75% of what we do with computers these days as a society is not processed on our local machines. The other 25% is traditional business applications.

That's pretty serious displacement. I don't disagree that office applications are unlikely to go that way en masse, but the vast majority of what we consider "useful" with home and (to some extent) business computers involves the web.

Of course, when people realize that there's more to the internet than "the web", things will get much more interesting.

--S

Re:Erm ...

[ClosedSource]

"I would venture to guess that outside of games, about 75% of what we do with computers these days as a society is not processed on our local machines. The other 25% is traditional business applications"

I don't know where you get your numbers. Of course for web apps to have displaced PC apps it would require that they replace at a minimum 51% of all apps (games included). Note this isn't necessarily the same as "what we do with computers these days" which may include new applications that only make sense with remote resources.

i like the server in my server room

[WeAreAllDoomed]

i don't want my company data on someone else's servers.

unless "services" address this, there will be resistance. maybe not if you're buying used stuff at estate sales and selling it on ebay, but...

Re:i like the server in my server room

[spun]

How about a software subscription service where you own the server and the data stays on your hard drive, but the software is on a network filesystem?

Re:i like the server in my server room

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

There will certainly be resistanc but I think you will change your mind when:

(i) costs decline to make it attractive to you (if your $200,000 costs can be cut to $75,000, wouldn't you? (I'm just making up #s))
, or (ii) it becomes so easy and ubiquitous that you would be worse off to do it the old way (an example would be webmail versus desktop client email from an ISP)

How many people nowadays use Gmail, Hotmail, or what-have-you for their personal and confidential e-mail? At one time, many would have said that they would not trust a "free email provider" for their email... In the corporate world, the best example is perhaps salesforce.com. So many companies are actually trusting their critical sales data to this online outfit. Given that many organizations treat their sales data as even more secretive and precious than R&D or employee personal data, you would think that no one would use salesforce.com. Yet it's happening and it will only grow... or how many people are willing to provide a whole hoard of personal information about them and their company when booking flights online or hotels...

In a crude sense, already your data is on someone else's servers. For instance, many organizations (not the large corporations but certainly many mid-sized and smaller companies) store their data on their ISP's or some 3rd party IT company's servers. Many don't even know that htey are doing this (cuz many in management don't really understand a lot of tech stuff and most of it is transparent anyway (only a techie can tell the difference between a file server in your building vs one 100km from you)). From a business point of view, a lot of the tech infrastructure in non-tech firms (i.e. I'm talking about a general business whose core competency is not tech) are costs that the business would love to get rid of.

A lot of people may hate Microsoft here but let's face it, MS' view of web services is taking off. It's just too bad for them that companies like Google are taking a big chunk of the market. Ebay is nothing compared to "web maps" (maps at Google or MSN or whatever) and their potential.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[MaGogue]

Hmm, what about encryption? Your data is encrypted and unusable to anybody else. The key is on a smartcard you keep at your place.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[NineNine]

i don't want my company data on someone else's servers.

I used to think that, too. Then, I found out I could let somebody else deal with the headaches and liability, so I outsourced it. Just in the past 6 months, I've outsourced both our web hosting, and I switched out our dumb POP mail server for an Exchange Server hosted elsewhere. Now that we don't have to deal with worrying about the server, we can spend more time and energy on the parts of our business that actually makes us money.

Data, schmata. They do backups, they've got all of the redundancy, blah, blah, blah. It's better than we could do in house, and it's cheaper.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[PingSpike]

What are you talking about? Haven't you seen the bang-up job banks and credit card companies have done at keeping our personal information from being lost...and the impressive level of accountability they display when those rare events occur? Jeeze! You're going to have to learn to trust people if you want to make it in this world.!

And by people, I mean companies that did a cost benefit analysis and decided that when it came right down to it your data actually wasn't that important to them and wasn't really worth putting a whole lot of effort into protecting.

Protecting information from loss is expensive. But protecting data from some one trying to steal it is even more so. If I'm a large company thats pushing around data my competitors really want...do I want to put it in servers I own managed by people within my own company? Or with a third party company? Both can of course be corrupted...but which one would be cheaper to buy and less likely to be looking out for your companies interests?

Re:i like the server in my server room

[chris_mahan]

Amen.

I do consulting for a small company (think 35 people) and I've recommended the exact same thing to the director of IT there: You don't have the resources to do IT Right. Outsource as much as possible. It won't cost less, but it will be much more reliable. In the long run, the business has to have a reliable and sound base on which to stand.

He won't have to let people go, because he doesn't have the people now.

As far as the company data, well, I told him it was more likely that a hacker could get it off their servers than get it off the ASP's servers.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[penix1]

"How about a software subscription service where you own the server and the data stays on your hard drive, but the software is on a network filesystem?"

It still won't work for many reasons. First, it requires an "always on" broadband network connection that far too many people don't have and feel they don't need. Second, the security risk is too high. Too many of these companies will sell whatever isn't nailed down especially your data. Even though you may retain a copy of your data locally, nothing is stopping these companies from also keeping a copy on their server. Third, people don't like to rent what they feel they should own. Ownership is a big part of human behavior that can't be ignored. Just ask the **AA about it. Lastly, it has been tried many times in the past with disastrous results. If this guy can't learn from the past, he is doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

B.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[Anonymous Coward]

I've worked at companies that range from about 150 employees all the way up to 100,000+ employees and I can't see any of them storing their proprietary information on systems they do not control. I could see where they buy "appliances" for use on their intranet but I ensuring the protection of their proprietary information is critical for most businesses success.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[kripkenstein]

don't want my company data on someone else's servers.

That is easily solved by suitable encryption.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[NineNine]

As far as the company data, well, I told him it was more likely that a hacker could get it off their servers than get it off the ASP's servers.


Exactly. The ASP's or ISP's deal with security for a living. They're going to be as good if not better than most regular IT people because they deal with it all day, every day.

And of course, you're right... it is a bit more expensive from an initial dollar standpoint (ie: we're paying $xxx/month for this hosting and $xx/month for that), but yeah, less time spent on it, and more reliable. It most definately saves money in the long run.

Everything else is divided up into specialties (ie: if a window gets broken, we don't go make our own glass), so why not IT?

Re:i like the server in my server room

[businessnerd]

Would you rather keep your priceless heirlooms in a safe under your bed, or would you rather keep them in a safe deposit box in a bank vault? Sure you could spend the money to build a vault in your own home to protect them, but you'd probably have to sell the heirlooms to pay for it. Plus, you know jack shit about bank security. What do you do when someone actually attempts to break into your super vault?

I'm guessing you would feel much safer with the bank.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[dave562]

Here's me putting myself out there and admitting that I don't have all the answers, so with that bit of humility out of the way.... How do you deal with the bandwidth issue?

One of my clients has 4 sites connected on an UUNet/MCI MPLS network. They run Exchange and they need to run servers at each of the sites to hold the mailboxes locally at those sites because otherwise, trying to open mailboxes across the network from the remote sites is an exercise in frustration. Maybe that's just an Exchange misconfiguration and Exchange really can be configured for 250 people to run quickly across... say a 3mb WAN connection?

Re:i like the server in my server room

[drinkypoo]

We're currently in the process of moving from an externally-hosted mail service to having Exchange on site. I think it's a horrible, terrible mistake to have your email outside your company, and I'll explain why:

1. An email to anyone internal to the company has to traverse your network link twice.
2. It makes document retention more difficult. If you are subject to sarbanes-oxley or are involved in pending federal litigation you must retain all incoming email for something like two years.
3. Who's reading your email?

You do need a secondary MX to batch up your mail and send it to you if your link is down. In that case you must look at #3 above, but #1 and #2 are still solved.

Now, it only makes sense to host your web content, especially if you can colocate. That keeps your private data private and gets your web traffic off of your corporate network link, which is a good thing. But your email? That's just crazy talk.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[spun]

First: there is no reason that your servers could notn cache the software. Second, the security risk is no higher than with traditional software. Reputable companies will sign contracts stating they won't use your data. Nothing is stopping any software company from sending your personal data to their server, except they would have their asses handed to them in a court of law if anyone sued them. Third, what with support contracts and upgrades, people are in effect renting software now. Most people don't care or even really understand the difference between owning intellectual "property" and renting or licensing it. Finally, there were insurmountable bandwidth issues that kept this from working in the past.

Personally, I would never rent software I used at home. But then, I would never lease a car either. I hear many people, and especially corporations, do lease cars if it makes financial sense for them. I imagine leased software would make sense in some situations, too. Think about it: you have a little startup and you want a nice integrated CRM, HR and accounting package. You can shell out $100,000 upfront for the package with the functionality you want and still pay $1,000/month in support, or you can lease the package, support included, for $2,000 per month. Which would you pick?

Will leased software ever completely replace owned software, as this Sun wingnut predicts? In his greedy wet dreams, maybe. But it will become a larger part of the total software landscape than it is now.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Your view, as well as the other poster's view below, is true. I'm not denying that very few would embrace such a change. However, that doesn't mean it won't happen.

The reason no one wants to let go of their data is because of a lack of trust. There is no trust out there now because (i) technology is still in its infancy, and (ii) no established service provider has emerged (i.e. brand recognition). The present situation is like Ebay 5 years ago. How many people would put up anytyhing worth over $10,000 on Ebay back then? Only a few brave souls ;) But how about now? Many! The same thing will happen in other service areas. As companies become more established, they will gain market acceptance. Salesforce.com is what... 3(??) years old? But in 10 years, I'll bet a lot of people would be willing to use an online provider (whether salesforce.com or someone else) for their CRM...

Companies will lose some control... just like how many companies have lost control over their manufacturing by outsourcing most of it. But you are still better off. If costs can be significantly lowered, while losing some control, I think shareholders would vote in favour of it. As I mention in another response the data is not what is valuable; what's valuable is the idea/thought/process/etc behind it. Apple's iPod isn't #1 in its market segment because Apple zealously guards its blueprints (which I'm sure it does but it's irrelevant) but because it constantly innovates. Google isn't the #1 (depending on what you look at) online property because no one knows how to build a search engines (there are tons of search engines out there) or was the first one to try advertising. It's because it constantly keeps improving, staying ahead of the competitors. The same thing with other industries, say packaged goods or cars or whatever.

Maybe it's just my (misguided? ;) ) personal opinion but a lot of the stuff that companies guard are a waste of time and money. If efficiency can be improved (eg. imagine a salesperson trying to access an on-site CRM vs one that one can access from anywhere on the road) or costs can be lowered (i.e. storing and guarding data is not the core competency of most companies and it will be much cheaper if it can be done remotely) then I think this methodology will spread like wildfire... We may not be there yet but it'll happen IMO...

Re:i like the server in my server room

[NineNine]

I dunno. I own a 10 person company, and it's just fine for us. We have just a regular ol' 3 Mbps DSL connection. My buddy has a 6 person attorney's office that relies on Exchange for much more stuff than I do, and he doesn't have any problems. I dunno. Sounds like some kind of mis-configuration on the server end. I'd call them up and let them fix it. It works pretty easily for my and my friends' business, and we both just have plain ol' business DSL.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[NineNine]

1. An email to anyone internal to the company has to traverse your network link twice.

Eh, so what?

2. It makes document retention more difficult. If you are subject to sarbanes-oxley or are involved in pending federal litigation you must retain all incoming email for something like two years.

Actually, it's easier. If we need more disk space, the Exchange service provider just gives us more space. I don't have to deal with adding hard drives, servers, etc. Hell, I don't even have to notify anybody, they just handle it, and send us the bill.

      3. Who's reading your email?


Who cares? It's just business stuff. If our ASP wants to look at our exciting invoices, or customer questions, I really don't care. We don't have anything super-secret, but if we did, it probably wouldn't be sent via email, anyway.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[Lodragandraoidh]

it becomes so easy and ubiquitous that you would be worse off to do it the old way (an example would be webmail versus desktop client email from an ISP)

Yeah, until the day a SOX auditor comes in and says, "show me all your email from 2003 to the present" - at the same time that the service provider's gateway decides to hickup. So sorry - please pay Uncle Sam $14,000,000 for not securing your email documentation. Or maybe your service provider makes a dumb mistake and allows their servers to be hacked -- goodbye data, or more incidiously goodbye data integrity.

If particular data is your life blood you must control it. It is not good enough to prang your provider after the fact in many cases - unless what you do is so trivial that it does not matter.

I think any business that puts control of all of their non-trivial data into the hands of a service provider is asking for problems, legal, operational, and financial.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[drinkypoo]

An email to anyone internal to the company has to traverse your network link twice.

Eh, so what?

So you need more bandwidth when your data is stored outside your company.

If you don't need as much, you don't buy as much, and you don't pay as much. Saving money is good.

It makes document retention more difficult. If you are subject to sarbanes-oxley or are involved in pending federal litigation you must retain all incoming email for something like two years.

Actually, it's easier. If we need more disk space, the Exchange service provider just gives us more space. I don't have to deal with adding hard drives, servers, etc. Hell, I don't even have to notify anybody, they just handle it, and send us the bill.

And you trust them? Companies have died over less. I'll pass, thanks.

Who's reading your email?

Who cares? It's just business stuff.

Oh, is that all? Well, if it's just business stuff...

If our ASP wants to look at our exciting invoices, or customer questions, I really don't care. We don't have anything super-secret, but if we did, it probably wouldn't be sent via email, anyway.

Could you please let me know where you work? Since privacy isn't important to you, I want to avoid ever doing business with you. You might not care, but your customers do.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[Ryan Amos]

Does it matter? Can you protect your data better than they can? Probably not.

If someone really wants to steal your data, there are other ways of doing it. SaaS vendors take security very seriously, and if you're a small or medium sized company, the SaaS vendor's production environment is likely a far safer place for your data than on your network (they are likely running a combination of NIDS and host-based IDS and probably have a 3rd-party security firm doing regular testing, as well as good coding practices in development.)

You're right, security is always a big question from prospective buyers. There are security assurance clauses in most SaaS sales contracts, it's another item in the SLA. Anything you can do to secure your data, your SaaS vendor is probably already doing. The cost of securing the network and application is less than the cost of getting 0wned and losing all your clients, most businesses understand that.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[NineNine]

So you need more bandwidth when your data is stored outside your company.

If you don't need as much, you don't buy as much, and you don't pay as much. Saving money is good.

Again: Eh. We have a DSL line. It works fine for all of our Net needs, including Exhchange. I don't have any employees downloading porn or full DVD movies.

And you trust them? Companies have died over less. I'll pass, thanks.

Companies have died over running out of hard drive space? Which ones? I've never heard of that, before!

Could you please let me know where you work? Since privacy isn't important to you, I want to avoid ever doing business with you. You might not care, but your customers do.

I said invoices and the occasional customer question. What does that have to do with anybody's privacy? Did you forget your meds today?

Or maybe I should ask, what kind of sensitive stuff are YOU sending via email? Are you emailing credit card and social security numbers, or something like that? Hasn't anybody even mentioned to you that that might not be the smartest idea...?

Re:i like the server in my server room

[dave562]

Thanks for the reply but I think we're talking about two completely different scales here. You have a couple of people accessing Exchange on a DSL line. I have multiple sites accessing Exchange, terminal services, and a few other applications across an MPLS network.

The biggest obsticle to outsourcing that I have seen is the bandwidth required to make it work. For small offices with a few people it isn't much of a problem. For 100+ users using a variety of applications, it starts to get really expensive. Although the cost of bandwidth has come down, getting more than 5MB (and I'm not talking about a cable modem) is still going to cost thousands of dollars a month.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[NineNine]

Could you please let me know where you work? Since privacy isn't important to you, I want to avoid ever doing business with you. You might not care, but your customers do.

Oh yeah... I forgot to mention... my attorney has his office set up the same way. Sorry, but I'm going to listen to my attorney over a tin-foil hat wearing Slashdot freak.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[NineNine]

Yup, sounds like a PITA. I guess you gotta look at the bottom line. I can't imagine that bandwidth would EVER be more expensive than a dedicated IT staff in-house to babysit it, but I guess that I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[drinkypoo]

Oh yeah... I forgot to mention... my attorney has his office set up the same way. Sorry, but I'm going to listen to my attorney over a tin-foil hat wearing Slashdot freak.

Slashdot freak? I'll remind you that you have a login here, too. To some people, we are all freaks. How much do you get paid to try to discredit people who care about privacy, anyway?

What makes you think that a lawyer is making intelligent decisions about technology? That's like assuming that IT professionals are going to give you excellent legal advice. The simple fact that you would even make such an argument decreases my respect for your intelligence.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what? I've got an example that is even worse. Imagine a business or an individual actually letting another company hold on to their cash! I hope these "bank" things that some people use are just a fad and will never catch on. Next thing you know, my employer will want to send my paycheck directly to this "bank" thing instead of giving me cash on payday.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[NineNine]

"Discredit people who care about privacy?" Dude, you're off your fuckin' rocker. Tons and tons and tons of companies outsource their email. Did you ever think that the people hosting email and other similar stuff know MORE about security than you or I could possibly know? Besides, I've got a business to run. I don't have time or money to babysit my own Exchange Server. Sorry, but you really have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[drinkypoo]

Did you ever think that the people hosting email and other similar stuff know MORE about security than you or I could possibly know?

You know, that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that you don't know that you can trust those people. I know black hat cracker types who know more about security than I do. It doesn't mean I'd trust them to manage my email.

Intelligence and knowledge are not proof of ethical behavior! Smart people do bad things all the time. You are playing ostrich, not that ostriches actually bury their heads.

Besides, I've got a business to run. I don't have time or money to babysit my own Exchange Server.

So use something that doesn't require babysitting.

Sorry, but you really have no idea what you're talking about.

The fact that the company I'm currently working for is bringing the mail server inside because our current email hosting company's management fucked over its employees, causing them to leave, causing the company to be brain-drained, operated by new employees who they had to find in a hurry... That doesn't carry any weight with you? Your email could be hosted by the most reputable company around, and they could get fucked next week and now the people managing your email are some random assholes they hired because they couldn't get anyone else in a timely fashion - assholes who will wrap your email up on a magtape and sell it to the highest bidder.

Paranoid? Maybe. But if it happened to you, you wouldn't be the first one it happened to. Or even in the first hundred, probably. If that's acceptable risk to you, again, I don't want to do business with you.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[NineNine]

But if it happened to you, you wouldn't be the first one it happened to.

No, but I also wouldn't care. It's just email. If you're doing mission-critical stuff with email, you've already screwed up.

So use something that doesn't require babysitting.

There are no Exchange equivalents on the market. Well, maybe Lotus Notes, but that's many more times more complicated than Exchange.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[Raffaello]

Bad analogy - cash is fungible - if the bank takes your cash (by failing) insurance of various sorts will give you cash that is exactly the same. If an application/data service provider takes your company's data and sells it to a competitor it is now worth much less to you.

Data is unlike cash in that it gains value by being secret. Money doesn't become more valuable if I hide it from my competitors.

Opting into this model requires that large organizations with millions of dollars - sometimes even their whole business model - tied up in proprietary databases trust the service provider not to sell them out when an tempting offer presents itself (bad financial quarter for the service provider, lucrative offer from one of your competitors, etc.) The existence of agreements to the contrary is bad CYA thinking - when a competitor drives you out of business any such agreement with your app/data services provider at best will get you a court judgement which they may or may not be able to pay, and that only after a long court battle.

Finally, it also requires that you trust the service provider to provide adequate security - even if they don't act in bad faith, if they overlook something you lose in exactly the same way, only now it's due to industrial espionage.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[drinkypoo]

There are no Exchange equivalents on the market.

Before exchange you were using POP mail. Are you actually using the full functionality of exchange today?

There are, of course, entirely web-based alternatives that are based on reliable and trusted FOSS; although I've never thrown calendaring into the mix I know it's doable. Some people even produce supported commercial packages of this description, which I assume would probably be a requirement for you since you're already using Microsoft on one hand and managed services on the other. Not that Microsoft actually provides useful support to non-massive customers in most cases.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[Ryan Amos]

This is why you have SLAs with your service providers. Often these will get into specifying details like backups, SOX compliance and uptime with financial penalties associated for missing them.

I can put this in different terms: How is storing your data offsite much different than hiring employees to do it? At least if you run into problems on an offsite solution, you can sue and get some compensation; if your employees fuck up all you can do is fire them. You just have to be picky about service vendors like you would be about employees.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[NineNine]

No, there's no FOSS equivalent with all of the functionality.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[NineNine]

Look, you're missing the point. When one runs a business, one delegates. CEO's don't fix the delivery trucks or unclog the toilets. CEO's also don't set up mail servers. It's one of many thousands of pieces of any business that should be outsourced. Any company that has the president setting up mail servers simply won't grow past, oh I don't know... one person. It's not realistic in any way, shape, or form. You'd know that, if you actually had a job.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[drinkypoo]

Look, you're missing the point. When one runs a business, one delegates. CEO's don't fix the delivery trucks or unclog the toilets. CEO's also don't set up mail servers. It's one of many thousands of pieces of any business that should be outsourced. Any company that has the president setting up mail servers simply won't grow past, oh I don't know... one person. It's not realistic in any way, shape, or form. You'd know that, if you actually had a job.

I don't remember the part of this conversation where I said that the CEO should be setting up the mail server. I'd like you to show it to me.

I'm pretty sure that if this hypothetical CEO is working for a company worthy of actually having a title like CEO, he's probably got some people under him who can implement technology for him. Barring that, he can hire a contractor. Regardless, the typical communications solution is available as a turnkey appliance. You can buy a lick-and-stick Exchange server, for example. The same is true of non-Windows-based software. You'd know that, if you actually had a job.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[NineNine]

Uh, whatever, dude.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[Deideldorfer]

Zimbra is probably the closest thing to Exchange in the FOSS world.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[Anonymous Coward]

The only attorney you have is a court appointed one.

Re:i like the server in my server room

[Lodragandraoidh]

I see this as a larger pattern. Big companies are losing mind-share by outsourcing system development. If taken to an extreme the company has no technical knowledge and does nothing in house, instead it is just a collection of project managers and lawyers - a paper tiger - at great risk of being crushed by savvy competitors.

that is all good and well.... but

[zappepcs]

someone needs to remind him of the little 'botnet' problem that is currently going around. Sure, pan global networks are a good thing, and will bring us good thing... BUT the only thing they are bringing us right now is SPAM, SPAM, and more SPAM.

Sure, there is Google and eBay et al, but look at the reality of things... all that really needs to happen to stop the world is for 2 of those 5 computers to be infested with spam spewing botnets.

I think that the world is as ready as I am for that to happen... lets just shelve this cute idea before the botnet owners get word of it

Re:that is all good and well.... but

[ms139us]

Spam botnets will drive this further. I promise you that ebay is better administered than any company's sea of desktops.

Re:that is all good and well.... but

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, pan global networks are a good thing, and will bring us good thing... BUT the only thing they are bringing us right now is SPAM, SPAM, and more SPAM.

And porn, spam and porn is all that the Internet gives us.

"You don't buy software..."

[Recovering Hater]

That's right. I download it for free. :P

sigh

[Nasarius]

Sun and others have been predicting this ("the network is the computer") for about a decade. Nothing significant has changed, except for the presence of broadband. It remains a stupid idea.

Re:sigh

[inviolet]

Sun and others have been predicting this ("the network is the computer") for about a decade. Nothing significant has changed, except for the presence of broadband. It remains a stupid idea.

Do you recall that "the network is the computer" idea required ubiquitous broadband?

Only now, and over the next few years, is the idea even practical. So hold your horses, and watch.

Re:sigh

[PingSpike]

Watch what? Broadband penetration in most the US is still piss poor, broadband competition in ALL of the US even moreso. If this is where the world is planning on going, and they need broadband to get there, the US better get ready to be left behind.

Re:sigh

[chris_mahan]

I'm going to have to agree here. My home upload speed is a measly 45 Kb (Kilo bits for the non CS) thanks to Time Warner cable. I can't do a rsync of a 40 GB HD to a remote location. Forget a 500 GB HD (that would take all year at max throughput). So the *typical* broadband connection is at 100Mb/s, I don't see that happening.

On the server market, it's going to happen a lot faster (data-center to data-center) but then you run into issues of cost for the bandwidth needed. I have an unmetered 1Mb/s on the server (plenty fast for most things) and that is still not enough to rsync the HD out. To pay more means it would be cheaper for me to drive out there once in a while and back it up with esata.

Re:sigh

[operagost]

It's not good enough, but I wouldn't say it's "piss poor". It just passed 60%.

Welcome to the industry, Greg Pramanamana...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

You don't buy software, you buy the consequence of the software.

Welcome to the industry, Greg Pramanamana. In the great game of IT sales, the men will tell you that it's always been about pitching benefits (what you call "consequences"). What you actually close with doesn't really matter. Over time the deliverables have almost always been a combination of hardware, software and services; the mix may change over time but the mix will change again when someone's pricing model makes the alternatives look attractive again.

Re:Welcome to the industry, Greg Pramanamana...

[OECD]

...the mix will change again when someone's pricing model makes the alternatives look attractive again.

Or they remember to factor things like data vulnerability into their pricing model.

Re:Welcome to the industry, Greg Pramanamana...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pramanamana

Is that supposed to be a racist, anti-Greek thing? I realize both copy/paste and spelling are difficult tasks to master, but I didn't see how your slur was "funny."

Re:Welcome to the industry, Greg Pramanamana...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh stop being a fucking douchebag. There, is that a racist slur too? People like you make life unpleasant for the rest of us. You're the guy who takes offense at knock knock jokes because there are people who are homeless and don't have doors right?

Just leaving a racist anti-Douchebag "slur" for you.

Prestidigitation

[pkcs11]

Sun has been as good at predicting the market in the last ten years as George Bush has been at scoring a victory over terrorism.
Sun bets red and you'd be smart to bet black. It's like taking advice from Wang's CTO in 1990.

re: "The Network is the Computer"

[King_TJ]

I agree! Ever since I first heard Sun use that slogan, I thought it was dumb. If you ask me, "The Network is FOR the Computer" - and that's all there is to it!

All of these large corporations (IBM, Sun, Microsoft, etc.) envision making a fortune by renting you your software (by serving it to you over the Internet). Like everything else in life though, you've got a LARGE number of folks who'd much rather own than rent. Renting has historically only made sense in the short-term, usually as a "stop gap" measure. You rent a car for a weekend trip, or because the car you own is in the shop for major repairs. You rent an apartment or house because you need someplace to stay, but you aren't in a position, financially, where you can buy a house yet. You likely rent furniture or appliances from a "rent a center" type of establishment because you want to live above your means, and don't have the patience to save up to buy it. So tell me again why I'd want to continuously RENT my applications rather then buy software licenses and install/run the stuff on my OWN equipment?

The Internet no longer competitive?

[Doctor Memory]

What, exactly, is the internet's competition? Internet II? Minitel? I notice that no-one's offering me a discount to switch from using the internet to "MegaCorp's NEW ULTRAnet! (now with 30% more fiber!)".

Re:The Internet no longer competitive?

[Slipgrid]

Just an idea, but maybe Google is the competition of the Internet. Google indexes almost every web page worth reading, or they would have you think they do. The keep indexes over time of the changes of the pages. They index their index of the pages, and then they form opinions on the page.

This begs the question, is Google part of the Internet, or is the Internet now a subset of Google?

Re:The Internet no longer competitive?

[Doctor Memory]

is Google part of the Internet, or is the Internet now a subset of Google? Or more generically, is the internet the network, or the services it provides? To many people, the internet is just the WWW. They may know their e-mail travels over it, but to them they "get on" the internet by firing up their browser.

Re:The Internet no longer competitive?

[aderuwe]

I for one would sure need to change my ways if I still want to be able to locate stuff easily, use sane webmail, look at a map and such things in a possible after-Google era.
Google has made a lot of things easy. People take to that. It (or it's services, anyway) would be missed if they stopped being avaible.

I think I would still call Google a part of the Internet as opposed to a subset of same, but definitely a major part.

A.

Re:The Internet no longer competitive?

[operagost]

The author means that there will be no competition ON the internet.

Re:The Internet no longer competitive?

[winnabago]

I didn't realize how connected we were to Google until that outage a few weeks ago where Comcast's DNS servers made all of G's pages unavailable. No email, maps, phonebook, the linkrolls and feeds on my startup page through Google, photos that I need to consult for work in online Picasa, and even the stupid little calculator in the sidebar stopped working. Oh, and of course no searches - I got to Yahoo and didn't know what to do for a minute. Where do I type?

It was a bit of a surprise to me, as my dependence developed so gradually - like a cocaine addiction. To pull it away like that really got under my skin. Are they the internet? Well, for some people, just maybe.

Also in the future...

[silentounce]

He later when on to say that in the future "no one will own cars because the public transportation system will be so good. Also, private property will be consolidated and we will live in communes so as to provide cheaper maintenance. I mean, who wants to mow their own lawn."
 
He even went so far as to say that the concept of marriage will soon be dead. "In the future, everyone will frequent brothels. Anybody who fucks a whore is in fact consuming a service. They are contributing to a larger-scale brothel rather than them marrying some broad and sticking her in a house. I mean, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for cheap?"

Re:Also in the future...

[djdavetrouble]

Just the other day I was speculating that there was a global conspiracy by OPEC, UPS, and FedEx, and of course the DuPont family to squash teleportation technology.
I like this guy's way of thinking. =P

Re:Also in the future...

[cmburns69]

I mean, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for cheap?

You say that in jest, but when was the last time you went out to your barn and physically milked a cow just to drink some milk?

Re:Also in the future...

[silentounce]

I didn't say that, Sun's CTO did.

Anyway, while I don't personally own a barn, I have milked cows before. But it's been over a decade...

man, do I miss those teets.

Heard this before...

[__aaclcg7560]

Didn't someone say that the world market for mainframes was only four or five? Or that 640K was enough? Or that Sun Microsystems is dead, dead and dead?

Re:Heard this before...

[bpechter]

Ken Olsen at DEC had an early view of the problem of too many amateurs and non-professionals having interconnected computers. Virus problems, lack of backups, remote controlled spambots... Ugh.

He issued the quote below... It seems to me many companies would be better served with simpler web based access to services provided by ASPs. The problem is the current ASPs are putting far too much crap on the web eating bandwidth and demanding faster and higher end clients.

Less graphics is good. Less flash is good. Streaming video is good for support and training. Putting television type commercials on the web is bad. Eats too much network resources. How about some good PDFs instead.

I remember the old text based CompuServe and fairly lightweight AOL Geoworks and think far too much has been integrated into browsers with plugins.

  "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their
    home."
                                -- Ken Olsen, President of DEC, World Future Society
                                      Convention, 1977

Re:Heard this before...

[NDPTAL85]

Why on earth would I want to use a limited dumb client and not be able to see all the stuff I can see right now on my regular computer?

Re:Heard this before...

[operagost]

Didn't someone say that the world market for mainframes was only four or five?

Try reading the article.

Re:Heard this before...

[Anonymous Coward]

One out of three ain't bad =D

Don't be so sure

[RingDev]

I was thinking the same thing when I first read this. I want to own and operate my own software. But then I looked at my online usage.

I play WoW. Yeah I bought the software, but the software is worthless with out the online services.

I use Vent. Free software, guild pays for services.

I use hotmail. I don't even have an email client installed at home.

I could go from example to example of how online services have replaced many of my digital and non-digital based activities.

Online services will never be an absolute. For example, online word processors; they will likely do wonderfully in integrated solutions, but I doubt people would start going to www.MSWord.com to write their papers when they can have Word installed locally. To be honest, you'll be hard pressed to move people from desktop Office to just about anything because it is a rock solid application. Heck MS's primary competition for Office 2k7 is still Office 2k! If MS can't get users to upgrade, how is some pay-for-service online tool going to do it?

Anyway, the article might be a bit sensational (surprise!) but it is not with out merritt.

-Rick

Re:Don't be so sure

[Anonymous Coward]

> I play WoW. Yeah I bought the software, but the software is worthless with out the online services.

Not true. I sometimes play Ultima Online, but I'm not paying the monthly subscription fee.. I'm connecting to a RunUO based server I set up myself. You can do the same thing with backwards-engineered servers for WOW & Everquest.

Re:Don't be so sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck MS's primary competition for Office 2k7 is still Office 2k! If MS can't get users to upgrade, how is some pay-for-service online tool going to do it?

Maybe the way Google is doing it now -- offer email, spreadsheets, word processing for free over the web. Build up a user base. Then, when people are comfortable with the concept of using a web app for their office applications, start charging for the 'premium' features (online storage of docs?)

Re:Don't be so sure

[q-the-impaler]

Here you go man. [gives pat on shoulder]

Re:Don't be so sure

[just_another_sean]

OK fine, you're not paying for the service. But your still online and "the game is the network" to spin the gist of the article a little. Just as there are free alternatives to local business apps there will always be free alternatives to SaaS. But that doesn't change the fact that the underlying platform has shifted from your PC to the network. Sure it's a local network but the concept is the same; you may not need the internet to play but you need some type of connection to a machine other then your own to play...

Not saying I agree with the concept completely, at least I don't think it's going to happen overnight. But your reply to the gp didn't really refute what was said as much as add more weight to what was said.

Ebay?

[mpapet]

I had the great displeasure of browsing ebay after not visiting for a long time. Ugh!

I think his motivation for saying these things has more to do with keeping his job than reality.

... and the sun will consume the Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

... until then, free markets will continue to evolve and thrive with ideas and innovations.

Wishful thinking?

[eln]

Every software company out there wants "software as a service" to become the New World Order because it represents the Holy Grail: a reliable continuous revenue stream from existing customers.

When you sell software, you get a one-time payment that may or may not ever be repeated. When you sell software as a service, you get continuous revenue. This is what every software company wants. The question is, is this what the client wants.

Enterprise software companies are making a huge push into this space, but I'm still not convinced that the market for it is big enough, at least not yet. For software as a service to work, the client needs to trust its vendor far more than they do now, because not only are they trusting the vendor to provide them a piece of software, they're also trusting the vendor to handle the bulk of their IT functions as well.

This may be desirable for some companies, but I think the vendors are vastly overestimating the market because they want to believe EVERYONE will jump at the chance to hand over control to the vendor.

Obviously, there are some advantages for the client as well, such as being able to do things like true Disaster Recovery, and being able to sit in state of the art data centers and have real backup solutions, things that may cost far more if they wanted to implement them on their own. Even so, I just can't shake the feeling that the size of this market is more fantasy than reality at this point.

Re:Wishful thinking?

[slackmaster2000]

I'm not sure I agree with you. In consumer land, yes, purchasing software is often a one-time thing as you may decide never to purchase an upgraded version. Often times this is no big deal, you switch from Graphics Program A to Graphics Program B, woopee.

However, in the corporate world it's a bit different. The box on a shelf model of purchasing software doesn't apply so much. We purchase software and then pay for it yearly under expensive maintenance contracts. After years of using a software package, it becomes extremely difficult to even think about switching to another program and migrating data, re-implementing customizations, training, etc.

Even simpler software is moving to this model. Take Microsoft Office, which is no longer upgradeable by open license customers. In order to receive upgrade benefits, we have to purchase Software Assurance, which puts us in an interesting bind: right now we use Microsoft Office, but will we switch in the next three years? Maybe we will, but if we don't, then we will eventually wind up purchasing new licenses at full price. Thus if moving to a new office suite isn't a huge priority in the organization, it makes more sense to just pay the SA with the assumption that you'll still want MS Office and want to "save" some money. Customer lock-in. (I also wouldn't necessarily consider office suites to be simple these days either; when you've got tens of thousands of documents of all sorts, all created by Software X, it becomes harder and harder to justify switching)

So these companies supplying software to businesses already have a continuous revenue stream.

What I see holding back this software as a service thing in the present and near future is:

1) Yes there are potential cost savings after what could be a massive expenditure in moving to the new service. But do we really care enough to disrupt the current system? Is the reduction in IT overhead that significant? Over what timeline? Do we trust that technology won't change significantly during that timeline and not at all jive with our expectations? And just how portable do we need to be?

2) Do the applications work as well as local applications? Is the user experience equal or better? I've never seen this to be the case, but I can't predict the future. What happens when I *don't* want to upgrade the software features?

3) Customizing software is a common thing; yes, even in the non-opensource world. What happens when I want to add a feature, or a customized report (with or without the reporting tool provided by the software)? What happens when I want to link this application's data to that application? Am I provided these mechanisms?

4) We've all done the leased server and collocation thing. How'd that work out compared to admining your local servers? Nobody likes that out of control feeling.

4.1) We know what our in-house servers are doing. We can see them. We know what's on them. We know our internal network topology. We can maintain that, and would have to regardless. We get alarmed when something is wrong. We are confident that we can fix it without screwing anything up. We are completely responsible for all data and applications, and can choose exactly how they should work in the organization.

So IMO much of this depends on the quality of the software service, and how similar it is to a local deployment. If it isn't some web-based thing, or some Java-based thing, and the users and IT staff can both have the same power over the software as they previously had, then yay. I suppose if the applications just shot down the pipe to your machine when you wanted them, then it could work great... but why add the pipe into the mix of crap that can go wrong? Is it really that difficult to deploy and update software? I don't personally think so.

The views expressed in the article seem to have a very narrow scope. Some of them are valid for retail/online business, definitely. What about businesses that have absolutely nothing in co

Missing the forest

[BeBoxer]

From the blog:

Of course there are many, many more service providers but they will almost all go the way of YouTube; they'll get eaten by one of the majors.

The faulty logic here is that it presumes that new independent service providers aren't sprouting up every day. He sees the big trees in the forest, but misses the seeds and sprouts. Maybe that's just because the little guys don't buy pricy Sun hardware, so Sun doesn't see them. But they are there. I have no doubt that for every one web site that gets bought up by the big guys there are many more which don't.

What I see is that the Internet is an exceptionally fertile ground for seeds to sprout in. The existence of large companies such as Yahoo and Google doesn't change that. His comparison to the energy sector is flawed. The ease with which somebody can start up a new web site (sorry, "service provider") is in no way comparable to what it takes to start a new energy provider. Not even close.

It's this kind of nonsense which makes me wonder about the long term viability of Sun. It's no secret that cheap commodity boxes are eating them from the bottom up. So he spins this fairly tale about how all the small web sites (which don't run on Sun hardware) will simply cease to exist leaving only the mega sites (which do buy Sun hardware). Let me know how that works out for you.

Re:Missing the forest

[UtucXul]

So he spins this fairly tale about how all the small web sites (which don't run on Sun hardware) will simply cease to exist leaving only the mega sites (which do buy Sun hardware). Let me know how that works out for you.

I pretty much agree with you except that most of the big sites he mentions don't use Sun hardware either. Google is pretty well know for using cheap hardware. Microsoft isn't exactly known for running on Sun stuff. So it isn't even clear things look good for Sun even if this idea comes to pass.
Sort of too bad though since I've spent enough time on Ultra 10s to have a certain fondness for Sun hardware.

Re:Missing the forest

[BeBoxer]

most of the big sites he mentions don't use Sun hardware either. Google is pretty well know for using cheap hardware. Microsoft isn't exactly known for running on Sun stuff.

You're right, a lot of them don't. But the folks who do use a lot of Sun hardware tend to be the big players.

Sort of too bad though since I've spent enough time on Ultra 10s to have a certain fondness for Sun hardware.

Bah, kids these days. I spent many an hour doing sys-admin duties for a Sun 690MP server and a bunch of SparcStation 2 and SparcStation 5's back in the day ;-) I don't think I ever fully got over the change to SysV-style Solaris from BSD-style SunOS.

Re:Missing the forest

[PingSpike]

The faulty logic here is that it presumes that new independent service providers aren't sprouting up every day. He sees the big trees in the forest, but misses the seeds and sprouts.

The logic he's using here only works if the company is entrenched like say, Microsoft, is. But this is a new emerging market...as you suggest as soon as they get done buying the competitors out, some one else will move into fill the void/niche.
A real world example of this failing that I can think of was match.com trying to dominate the online dating services in like 2001 or so. At the risk of revealing myself as the as the antisocial dork I really am, I was 'in the market' for those services at the time. Match.com had gone around and bought up all the free competing services available at that time and made them all point to match.com. It got rid of their competition...for about as long as it took for some one to setup their own database and fill the "free online dating" website void. About a year later it seems like they had even more competitors then ever.

Re:Missing the forest

[1iar_parad0x]

If a bunch of chemical engineers wanted to start a new "energy" provider, could they do it? Rather, is the field so regulated as to artificially force (or keep) big players in the market?

Re:Missing the forest

[Raffaello]

If you read the interview you'll see that he also has a fairy story that predicts how Google will not be able to maintain their current practice of using cheap, custom hardware and will have to buy from big iron vendors (presumably sun of course).

It's as if he were interviewed in a sleep lab while he was having a really good dream.

Ebay stores are a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

The small business I want to deal with has their own web store and 3rd party CC payment partner. I was probably an early adopter of ebay and Amazon marketplace, now I'd happily go out of my way and pay more to avoid using either.

What do you think about that Mr Sun exec?

And then there were two

[wheatking]

""Let's see, the Google grid is one. Microsoft's live.com is two. Yahoo!, Amazon.com, eBay, Salesforce.com "" Let us see... Yahoo is the new AOL so they are out. salesforce will be amalgamated in to Oracle and become the SaaS arm of whatever shape the whole oracle/siebel/SAP side of legacy software looks like Amazon will stay in the game (see mturk for relevance), and eBay may yet survive. That leaves three and possible 2 since amazon+ebay would make a good combo. so there. > go Frank.

resistance?

[nurb432]

Dont hold your breath, people are doing it every day, and have been since the beginning.

Services absorbed by housing

[Denial93]

Gabbad the shaman, in a talk given today, announced that more and more service were absorbed by housing. "Look at the leatherer over there - he has abandoned his own tent and started using a house for his work. Likewise, the shepherds down south have given up the freedom of their own pastures and moved into houses at least over the winter. This means they aren't craftsmen anymore, they are sort of sub-services of housing. While there certainly are incentives for this trend, we should understand we are becoming dangerously dependent on the providers of housing. Masons and carpenters are monopolizing our economy!"

The shaman went on to warn: "If this trend continues, at some point there could be no craftsmen living outside of houses anymore! It is obvious this would be a great loss to our culture and society!"

eBay is NOT software...

[szelus]

Argument about eBay misses a point.
I don't believe anybody that sells on eBay is there because of a few scripts. They are there because of the buyers that search this site. Indeed, it's the unique marketplace, and marketplace was always a service. The fact, that eBay is a virtual one changes nothing.

Re:eBay is NOT software...

[SilentUrbanFox]

I think that is exactly the point.
If one were to implement one's own store solutions, you would be forced to include advertising costs, design your website so it could be easily indexed... eBay cuts out these problems, by allowing a company to use an already existing framework for enhancing customer awareness.

Papadopoulos...

[Anonymous Coward]

No offence to the person, but the name Papadopoulos makes me thing anything that the guy/gal will ever speak is going to be a hairy mess that I will need to weed through before I can make any sense of what he/she is saying...

Coffee..

Re: "The Network is the Computer"

[Doctor Memory]

So tell me again why I'd want to continuously RENT my applications rather then buy software licenses and install/run the stuff on my OWN equipment? Maybe because the application has pretty hefty hardware requirements? I notice that Salesforce.com is raking in the dough, largely because most CRM systems require two or three servers (and I don't mean Linux on a white box, think something like this. And that's per site, you'll probably have your main servers and a second set at a backup site (or at least one big one that can virtualize any of the others). And then there's the bandwidth, power, cooling, storage...

Here's a bad analogy for you: computers used to be like trains — nobody owned their own, you paid to ride someone else's. Eventually, cars became affordable, so most people bought a car instead of taking the train. The situation now is as if someone built this great mass transit system (the internet), and now most people can just dial a number on their phone and a shuttle shows up at their door. Sure, the people with sports cars and classic cars and people who just enjoy driving will keep their cars, but the rest of the folks will be glad to get rid of the maintenance hassle/expense and turn the garage into a media room.

In support of your rental analogy, I think it's more akin to people who lease cars instead of buying them. You get all the benefits of having a car, but at the end of the lease you trade it in for a new model. That's the benefit of renting your applications: you run the latest code and don't have to worry about upgrading, that's handled for you. Likewise with bug fixes. [0] Presumably there's some kind of support for custom work, I haven't really played much in the software services arena. But for a lot of things, it makes sense. Some ISPs already install a standard software bundle with a browser and e-mail client, why not just ship the browser and offer everything else on-line? They could even offer expanded services (like the basic office apps that Google is building), all served from their system.

I'm not convinced this is in "the near future", but it's going to become a trend. And I think a lot of people will jump on it.
+++
[0] Yeah, I can figure how much hassle it will be when your app vendor decides your bug is a low priority, or they decide to eliminate some feature you rely on. I think we'll find that vendors who keep their customers happy stay in business, and the market will demand a certain level of service/accountability.

Sun? Has to be wrong then.

[cruachan]

This is the company that has consistently managed to position itself in shrinking market niche's since 2001 and currently has no viable long-term market strategy. The most notable thing about Sun over the past few years has been there complete lack of ability to predict and utilize the market in any useful way. If Greg Papadopoulos had any normal ego he'd be far too embarrassed to be making public prophecies about the internet than this.

One would have thought that given Sun's current headlong decline into irrelevance he'd have been better employed trying to think of a way Sun can get out of the godawful mess it's currently in and leaving the prophecy to others who have some idea what they are talking about.

What a Fucking Idiot!

[eno2001]

Software as a service? Yeah... I'm sure we're all going to want to be running Photoshop via the net and trust our precious photos to a third party. I can only agree to a point which is that each family or household should have an expandable central computer that can be scaled to the family. It would provide vital services that each family needs: web server, mail server, VPN server, file server, print server, time server, etc... Families should then be able to interconnect those machines via a LAN-to-LAN VPN system. And of course it should use friendly names that Joe and Jane Average can relate to. Do away with "central server" and call it a "FamilyNet Appliance" or some such claptrap. "Aunt Mary and Uncle John just got a FamilyNet box! Let's link them up the next time they come over. Aunt Mary said that she will bring the Trustcard (a flash device that stores and exchanges encryption keys between trusted machines along with IP info. Static IPs would be required for FamilyNet boxes.) with her so that their system will connect to ours. THAT gives the power to the end-user and not businesses. I don't know about you, but I don't even trust my e-mail to anyone but myself. I run my own mail server. I have ever since an ISP took my account of five years and gave it to someone else when they bought my old ISP and pretty much screwed every high-end customer over.

I think the Sun CTO's predictions also overlook what it is that people actually do with their computers. He's looking at it from completely the wrong angle: business application, specifically e-commerce. The majority of people use their computers for recreational and creative purposes. Sure, you have things like Youtube and MySpace that are all the rage right now, but they are merely distribution points. They aren't actual tools. TO put a video up on Youtube requires that you have a video camera, video capture capabilities on your PC or Mac, and ideally editing software plus all the associated tools to create the content. This is what people WANT. Until we all have 10 gigabit links to the internet and latency is sufficiently low, I don't think that content production tools are suited for network publishing over the internet (aka Software as a Service). This guy's head is up his ass in my opinion.

Re:What a Fucking Idiot!

[NeutronCowboy]

"I think the Sun CTO's predictions also overlook what it is that people actually do with their computers. He's looking at it from completely the wrong angle: business application, specifically e-commerce. The majority of people use their computers for recreational and creative purposes."

And I think you're completely missing the target audience of the interview: IT people. Note that he says in the summary: "It really is the running of what we think of as IT through the network." Nobody says that everyone's gonna have an internet appliance at home, and store everything in the Googleplex. What he says is that IT services are becoming so cost efficient and the networks so robust that it makes less and less sense to buy your own hardware and train your own specialists.

Again, he is not talking about your own home server network, your photoshop install or your porn collection. He is talking about large-scale IT software. There'll always be a place for your own local storage and software. But large-scale services will become more and more ubiquituous - witness webmail, WoW, network drives, etc.

Re:What a Fucking Idiot!

[ffejie]

He's looking at it from completely the wrong angle

Speaking of looking at it from the wrong angle... did you read your own post?

. It would provide vital services that each family needs: web server, mail server, VPN server, file server, print server, time server, etc...

Time Server? VPN Server? Mail Server? What family needs any of this stuff? Almost every family can barely keep a Windows (or Mac) system operational and doing what they want, let alone administer a mail server! I'm a nerd, but even I don't want to worry about a mail server on my premise. What if my internet connection goes down? What if my power goes out? What if there's a power surge? What if my HD goes bad? Think of the power costs! I'd rather outsource my own mail (Gmail) and have pretty good assurance that it'll be up most of the time. Or at least, more often then my own internet connection is up. What kind of person are you?

I don't know about you, but I don't even trust my e-mail to anyone but myself. I run my own mail server.

Oh, never mind, this post was probably lost on you.

Re:What a Fucking Idiot!

[eno2001]

Running a home server is pretty negligable in terms of cost. My main server probably costs no more than $2 maybe $5 a month to run 24/7. It does nearly everything I outlined above with a few exceptions. However, my main point was that if the appliance was done right, it would make these things seamless to the end user.. It's seamless to my wife and the friends and family who use my darknet to access internal resources. Hell... I'm even setting up a private VoIP network for the softphones on said friend and family PCs. The net connection where I am has only gone down twice in nearly four years and this was only due to planned moves. I use UPS systems to backup the power for the main computers that make up my network as well as the switches and DSL modem. They also double for surge protection. Again, if all of this was integrated into an appliance, it would be pretty transparent to the end-user. I've had failed HDs as well, but that's why I have nightly backups to a different disk array. Again... if done properly in an appliance, the user would simply be notified to replace Drive 3 in set 4. This is all within reach of the average household as long as you throw away the outdated notion that these things require a genius to set up or maintain. If they're done right, they are nearly "set it and foget it" systems.

Re:What a Fucking Idiot!

[Deideldorfer]

I used to think like you do, then I asked myself, "What happens to my friends and family's data if I die?" None of them have an inkling about how to maintain something like you describe, and they would be hard-pressed to find someone else who could do it for a reasonable fee. The reality is that hardware and software changes too quickly for most people to keep up, and any installed appliance will be quickly outdated.

If all of your family's apps are provided as a service that they access via a thin client, they don't need a technical guru to do the things they need to do. If the thin client breaks, they go buy a new one for $100 at Walmart. If they can't figure out how some piece of software works at 3AM, they click on the live help icon in that app and a nice man from India walks them through it, instead of bugging their son in the middle of the night.

Re:What a Fucking Idiot!

[daigu]

Umm, do most families need "web server, mail server, VPN server, file server, print server, time server, etc..."? I'm a geek and all, but I don't need or want to run a web or mail server from my home.

Also, you also have to factor in this guy works for Sun. Families don't buy Sun boxes nor would they be buying Sun services (not counting Java for obvious reasons).

Re:What a Fucking Idiot!

[eno2001]

That though has occurred to me actually. And I suggested to my wife that one of my closer friends should be given the root password for the system if that ever happens. But... for things like family photos and the like, I've burned multiple DVDs of the data and placed them with various members of the family/friend circle.

Re:What a Fucking Idiot!

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact remains that for something which is entirely network based, like email, there is really no point for a typical family to have their own server. Similarly, it's much easier, cheaper and more reliable for web hosting to be done by professionals in bulk (virtual servers, etc) with hardware in racks at a telco somewhere. Print servers are built into printers, if you want a network one. I don't even have a printer, myself.

File server... maybe in the future. Right now if you want to move files around you just carry the DVD, ipod or laptop you're storing them on to a different room. Remember that laptops are more common than desktops now.

Re:What a Fucking Idiot!

[Spectra72]

oftware as a service? Yeah... I'm sure we're all going to want to be running Photoshop via the net and trust our precious photos to a third party.

yeah, what do those Flickr people think they're doing? Or Snapfish, or Kodak online services. People trusted their photos to 3rd parties for DECADES. Only a very tiny minority ever developed film on their own back in the "olden days".

I don't know about you, but I don't even trust my e-mail to anyone but myself. I run my own mail server.

Well good for you. The success of Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo Mail shows that as time goes on, you're going to be as quaint as a horse-drawn buggy. People thought co-location was a pipedream once upon a time. "Move my servers to someone else's facilities!!? Preposterous!" People thought outsourcing IT functions was crazy, but the success of companies like EDS shows that there is a huge demand for such things.

This guy's head is up his ass in my opinion.

And that's why you're ranting on Slashdot and he's getting quoted all over the Internet. You have no vision. You only see how *you* do things. You have a limited ability to think in the abstract. And then you cuss and swear.

Re:What a Fucking Idiot!

[ffejie]

My main server probably costs no more than $2 maybe $5 a month to run 24/7.

How do you figure? Maybe my math is wrong.

300W x 24 hours / day x 30 days / month = 216kW-hours per month

In my area, a kW-hour costs about 14 cents. But, lets say you live in CA where I understand electricity runs about 12 cents/kWh.

216kWh / month x 0.12 $ / kWh = $25.92 / month.

Looks like you might be running up a bigger bill than you think.

The net connection where I am has only gone down twice in nearly four years and this was only due to planned moves.

Seriously? I have to get me one of those, mine is down at least once a month, until I reboot the modem. Also, we generally have cable outages 6-8 times a year for an extended period (2-10 hours). Who provides your internet service?

Re:What a Fucking Idiot!

[eno2001]

No. You totally missed my point. Which is: I have NO interest in computers for business. There is no point to using them that way. To me computers are a creative tool for producing music, movies, images and software as expressions of the mind and soul. I don't care for any other use much. To others, this might seem alien. But to me, it is the only way. So what he offers has no appeal to me whatsoever. It might to some lame suit in a business though. That's fine. There's always got to be room for people who crave nothing but profit. Sadly.

Re:What a Fucking Idiot!

[Spectra72]

Do you need some help nailing yourself to that cross, you poor, tortured, misunderstood soul?

You don't care much for other uses of computers? Astonishing. How do you think you are able to use a computer in the first place? Because someone saw a profit in designing, building and selling you one. "Oh but I build my own out of recycled parts from 3rd world countries!" Whatever. The company that designed the CPU, they most certainly used computers for profit. The broadband company that sells you access most certainly does it for profit. The fact that you are able to blissfully wander around in your little world, free from such crass concerns as "computers for profit" is in fact enabled by a huge economy that runs on computers....for profit.

Also, you don't think people use online services from Amazon, Google...Blizzard, for expressions of their mind and soul? How about the person that buys a book of poetry from Amazon? (or sells it on Amazon or Ebay). How about the people doing huge art projects via Flickr?

Again, no ability to think in the abstract and obviously no ability to see beyond your own nose. And you call Greg P. a "fucking idiot". That's what is sad.

Re: "The Network is the Computer"

[teh_chrizzle]

So tell me again why I'd want to continuously RENT my applications rather then buy software licenses and install/run the stuff on my OWN equipment?

because "software as a service" is the latest thing in technology. platform independant ajax enabled web2.0 podcast blog web operating system virtualizations are the newest way for businesses to give money to technology companies.

Sun needs a new CTO

[Anonymous Coward]

If he is banking his company on this, they need a new CTO.

Software as a service is no different from reading books online- no one really wants to do it. Its a hassle to deal with, and when you go on the road do you really want to worry about whether you've checked out a license for your laptop? And what of the solutions that don't really support disconnected operation?

The bottom line is that its not that different from running shared copies of software off a shared server and MOST companies now recognize what a bad idea that is. In fact, few software packages support it anymore because there is no demand for running software from a shared drive. People don't like it. And no amount of CTO propoganda is going to change what humans like or dislike. We like physical objects, not virtual objects. We like to own books, not read novels online. We don't like hassle, and we certainly are afraid of using services that invite viruses into our networks.

Mark my words- software as a service is a pipe dream of companies like Google, Microsoft and Sun. They see the potential for much more profit if their software doesn't install. They can charge by the drink, and you know how people tend to lose track of how much they are drinking. It also cuts down on distributions costs and license validations. Its only great for the software companies, but it offers very little to the corporations they're trying to sell it to.

Will you see it come to pass? Probably in small numbers because for every "Office Online" type product, there will be 2 or 3 Open Source products that don't require people to go online. They become much more attractive, especially since they are essentially free. Look for these big software companies to reach that same conclusion by 2010.

The real model is software imaging...that is, by 2015 we should see PC's that will image their OS and software packages from the internet as provisioned install that can be deprovisioned when the need is over. Its not software as a service, its provisioning of PC's as a service. Companies will be able to manage their whole OS load from a Microsoft web site and manage every application in that load. The idea is already being implemented today, albeit in a sloppy fashion.

You just made the case for network neutrality...

[maillemaker]

>What I see is that the Internet is an exceptionally fertile ground for seeds to sprout in.
>The existence of large companies such as Yahoo and Google doesn't change that. His comparison to
>the energy sector is flawed. The ease with which somebody can start up a new web site (sorry,
>"service provider") is in no way comparable to what it takes to start a new energy provider. Not even close.

Excellent post. And, pardon my topic derailment, but I'd like to take this time to point out to everyone that this is an excellent reason to preserve network neutrality. It is the neutrality that is the fertilizer that makes the Internet such a fertile ground for those seeds.

Steve

Cost of good data

[plopez]

(i) costs decline to make it attractive to you (if your $200,000 costs can be cut to $75,000, wouldn't you?
NO. Here's why:

I currently work for a SME of approx. 120 employees, sales in the 75-100 million dollar range.

About 3 years ago I was told that we had 12-15 million dollars of data in our databases. Based on the cost of collecting and maintaing the data (lots of engineering field data). In the past few years we have doubled in size both in employees and in database size, so let's call it 30 million in data in our databases.

This does not include data in documents on the file servers or in emails. SO let's say another 30 million there.

Now, some of our clients compete against each other and we are *very* careful to firewall information so that the data from client A is not seen by client B. Not only could a breach like this resutl in losing client A and/or getting sued by client A, but would ruin our reputation and make it difficult to attract other clients.

The problem is that people take data, good data, far too lightly. Good data is hard to obtain and expensive. Without you are SOL. And so we protect our data and try to insure it is of high quality. We trust no one with the data.

The 'savings' of SaaS are miniscule compared to the risks to the company in this case.

Also data lasts longer than programs or vendors. What happens if the software company goes under or if you need to port it to a new application?

Except for a few cases I think SaaS is very inappropriate and will not be as wide spread as some hope.

You are right though, many companies are already exposing themselves. However, we see it as a false economy. There is no replacement for just doing the work.

Re:Cost of good data

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

"However, we see it as a false economy. There is no replacement for just doing the work."

I definitely don't think it's a false economy at all. In fact it's a growth industry that will end up becoming very large... I don't think this is necessarily avoiding work, but is instead something that improves efficiency... a disruptive technology if you will... someone still has to do the work...

Just because someone else will store your data does not mean that it will be available to your competitors or your public or whatever. As far as I'm concerned, security will not be the wall that prevents any of this (education and marketing will take care of that) but instead is the technology. Communication networks, computer networks, etc are still not fast enough to be able to do many of these things in an efficient manner.

Most you that are concerned have valid concerns but the way I look at it, that's an old way of looking at stuff. Through history, many have said they will never part with some particular sensitive information/procedure/knowledge/product when in fact they end up doing it over time, as technology lowers costs and makes the old way of doing this obsolete. What we are seeing is a new strategy at work. I mean, ignore the controversy over outsourcing on Slashdot, and look at how many companies are outsourcing non-core, although critical, aspects of their business. Thirty or fourty years ago, it would have been a ridiculous proposition for, say, a car company to outsource nearly all manufacturing (particularly all the main parts). How many hardware companies send their highly confidential blueprints for their products to some external manufacturer? Management in the 60's and 70's would probably have never done that. Even going back to the Ebay example, hardly anyone would have bothered to auction expensive items (Ebay does handle items worth hundreads of thousands of dollars, and even some million dollar items) online a few years ago.

I think the mistaken view has to do with the notion of data. What is important is not the data; what is important is the knowledge/process/information contained in it. As competition increases, knowledge spreads faster, communications become quicker, and product life cycles shrink, we will almost end up with a situation where the data that is generated this year will largely be obsolete next year. What past generations thought of as sacred and zealously guarded will end up obsolete long before anyone even realizes it. When that happens, holding data will become a "cost center" that is worth minimizing. Sensitive accounting information that no CFO will send externally will all of a sudden be sent outside the organization; important R&D will actually be held off-site; and so forth... perhaps that time is not now but it is a growth industry that is in its infancy.

Re:Cost of good data

[TedTschopp]

Now, some of our clients compete against each other and we are *very* careful to firewall information so that the data from client A is not seen by client B. Not only could a breach like this resutl in losing client A and/or getting sued by client A, but would ruin our reputation and make it difficult to attract other clients.

And I'm sure that Google / Microsoft / Amazon / IBM / SAP will be very careful to make sure that your data is firewalled and secured from your competitors. I think your paragraph here proves the point that the article makes.

As network speeds / security / reliability increase the need to have data both here and there decreases. Once this happens the data will migrate towards a large natural repository. The only forseable problem problem with this model of computing is electrical generation to power the grids, and this two will be solved in good time.

Re:Cost of good data

[mhall119]

I think you are confusing Software as a Service with Data as a Service. In your example, keep the data secured in your own network, but why install MS Office on every computer when you can subscribe to MS Office service for a low monthly cost? Your Word docs can stay local, but your Word install is remote. Zero-day MS Word exploit? Yours can be patched the instant MS has the patch available, no need for a Sys Admin to keep your workstations up to date.

That is the promise that SaaS holds. In the end, all you'll need for yourself is your data and your bandwidth. Much easier to obtain and maintain that an entire software library.

eBay as a markeetplace

[mochan_s]

I really don't think eBay can be said as a marketplace.

The only people who sell there are individuals or companies looking to dump refurbished, returned or old merchandise.

The fact that ebay+paypal fees are ridiculously high makes it a killer for any business to sell there. They basically host to people who have nowhere else to sell by charging enormous fees.

I know a few people who have tried to make a living or business out of selling on eBay and have always concluded that it's not worth it at all.

Thus, my point is people don't sell on ebay because they like the service model - it's because there is nothing like it that has national search on it. Even more simpler, there is no non-service version of it.

Re:eBay as a markeetplace

[photomonkey]

"I really don't think eBay can be said as a marketplace.

Marketplace: The arena of commercial or competitive dealings (source:Apple Dictionary).

How then is Ebay not a marketplace?

I agree with what you said about fees there being astronomical, but that is the nature of their business. People have a perception that Ebay is the place to go for good deals, hard-to-find-items and, typically, tax-free shopping (even on both ends of the deal).

Although Ebay used to have really good deals, nowadays prices on popular/common items are the same or more than what another online merchant, or even some brick and mortars, charge for the same good. Likely, this stems from the higher fees Ebay keeps imposing.

Ebay has done a great job of marketing: convincing buyers and sellers that Ebay is the place to do transactions. They have also done a great job of finding ways to take money from sellers and consumers coming and going.

So, did I miss something in your post?

Re: "The Network is the Computer"

[bigpat]

Rent versus owning can be for a variety of reasons. I could live in an apartment and have a quality of life the same as I do now for much less money, but I wish to have control over my future. Since I own and have a fixed mortgage rate, then I know what my mortgage payment will be 10-20 years from now, but I don't know what it will cost to rent an equivalent apartment because rents are driven by demand. So to with Software. But I also am aware that I am not making out as well in the short term because I own. And I assumed significant risks of losing my investment if housing prices fall more than a certain amount and never recover. All risks that I was willing to take, but others in other situations might rather not and focus their efforts towards building equity and stability in other areas.

So, I agree with your analogy in that there are a lot of good reasons to own rather than rent software, but everyone's situation will be different. And every application is different. If you are talking about document creation, then why would you possibly rent an online application when you can download a free and unencumbered feature complete software package such as OpenOffice? But if you are talking about Internet Search Software, then you would have to be nuts or extremely wealthy to own the computers and bandwidth necessary to index the entire Internet and store that index so that you could do your own complete Internet Searching on your own application.

The idea that every person or business will have the same requirements and abilities and that every piece of software should or can be served from some central provider is dumb. And people are right to point out that it is simply an unrealistic hope of companies that are desperate to create a world where they are utility like providers with steady revenue and don't have to compete quite so hard. It is a monopolistic vision of a world that would mean stagnant technology and high costs for people.

The market won't decide, people will.

You'd think that the company with their trend

[melted]

You'd think that the company with their trend of the stock chart would refrain from "predicting" anything. Predict some shit that will boost your stock price for starters. :-)

Re: "The Network is the Computer"

[ffejie]

You rent a car for a weekend trip, or because the car you own is in the shop for major repairs. You rent an apartment or house because you need someplace to stay, but you aren't in a position, financially, where you can buy a house yet. You likely rent furniture or appliances from a "rent a center" type of establishment because you want to live above your means, and don't have the patience to save up to buy it. So tell me again why I'd want to continuously RENT my applications rather then buy software licenses and install/run the stuff on my OWN equipment?

Depreciation. You rent your applications and your servers because it's a lot cheaper than buying them. There are plenty of people that rent their cars rather than buy them -- it's called leasing. Generally, anything that will depreciate over time (cars, servers, computers) you want to lease because you don't want to be stuck with the equipment. Is there a resale market for my 5 year old server? Probably not. On eBay maybe, but it's not a significant percentage to be worth the hassle of reselling it. If I leased that server, at the end of 5 years I could get a new one, and pay roughly the same cost. Same thing with Office 2K. I don't want to own Office 2K licenses once I buy Office 2K7 licenses. If I leased (rented, paid for the services) then I could just upgrade to Office 2K7 when it comes out and not pay for the Office 2K licenses. Things like houses, you don't want to rent, because they go up in value.

Of course, the other big part of this that you're missing is that running your own IT shop in house is generally expensive and not cost-effective. Since you're reading this I'm assuming you're part of an IT shop that is costing your company a lot of money to maintain servers. Try to figure out how much you cost a month (in salary, benefits, equipment, physical space, etc.) and then figure out how many servers you can manage. Now figure out what the servers cost (capex, electricity, cooling, space) and see if all of that boils down to a couple bucks a month for a hosted application per user. It'll probably be very close. Unless of course, you're in a very small IT shop that only has a few people doing the work of many, or a huge company that has managed to get economies of scale to work.

Article is Bullshit

[argoff]

What he means to say is that he "wishes" that it's all going to be a serivce. He "wishes" that he can sell us a stupid word app that plugs into the internet, and that we pay him $20 per month for the rest of eternity. Well, I got news for him - the future of software is free, as in freedom, as in Linux, apache, firefox, and ironically open office. While companies will pay for SERVICES or for expertice to make sure all systems are go, and while the cost of that service per value will go down over time because free software is always improving in terms of ease, security and reliability. This is a far cry from saying that all software will be like a service provided over the internet that the masses subscribe to. While there will be a lot of remot support and custom software, that will be a lot different that all software being remote. Sun's problem all along is that markets are customer driven, not driven by corporate wishfull wet dreams like this.

And about EBay, and what not. He has that wrong too. Eventually all search, auctions, shared data, news, photo sharing, and music will be pure peer to peer. The big datacenter era that we are in now is juat a stepping stone down that path.

Consolidations of web forms with submit buttons

[iamacat]

Which is Ok, because its just one kind of software. Internet users have a variety of needs - gaming, peer to peer, video-conferencing, remote control of medical or other equipment. None of this is addressed by HTML forms or perhaps even current Internet infrastructure. Let the companies who can not make profit on another search engine or web mail client innovate. After all, IBM and DEC used to hold monopoly on web forms (known as intelligent terminals at that time) and look what happened.

Re:Consolidations of web forms with submit buttons

[Bryansix]

Java, Flash, AJAX, Bit Torrent... none of those address the gaming, peer-to-peer, video-conferencing, or remote control of medical equipment problems right?

Re:Consolidations of web forms with submit buttons

[Jesus_666]

Yeah, Flash is great for gaming! Indeed, my X2 3800+ is almost equivalent to a Super Nintendo when playing Flash games. Clearly, browser-based Flash gaming will displace all those dedicated-app games like Quake 4 or Crysis. Similarly, FLV is the way to go for video conferencing, although maybe JPEGs with AJAX-based auto-updating might be even better.

The fact that they can fulfill those roles doesn't mean that they're good at it. Likewise, SOA-- I mean SaaS is good in some cases and useless in others. For example, if you need something that crunches huge amounts of numbers and gives you back information instantly (telemetry analysis?) you're not going to run it over an inherently unreliable network. Also, such an application would require a really fast connection, which adds additional cost.

Re:Consolidations of web forms with submit buttons

[Bryansix]

Thanks for ignoring Java. There is nothing you can do for a business app that you cannot implement via Java over the Internet. If the Internet is too volatile for you then create dedicated connections to the service provider.

Re:Consolidations of web forms with submit buttons

[Jesus_666]

Business apps aren't everything and lots of people need to crunch data in ways that COTS software can't do and running your in-house developed software means further hassle, for example asthe servers you might potentially crash aren't yours. Also, dedicated connections mean a recurring cost - especially if you need low-latency access. That cost might exceed that of running your own server(s).


Besides, you mentioned gaming, P2P, video conferencing and remote control of robots as areas where SaaS would make sense. Those, however, are all things you want to do on a local machine.

There are good-looking, fast 3D games written in Java, but they rely on a powerful client, as do all 3D games today. If we apply the SaaS concept of moving the program itself to a server we get less than desirable results.
Games require you to be able to display frames at least 60 times per second, thus for video alone you need (assuming a frame size of 1280x1024, 60 fps and 24 bit color) 1280*1024*24*60/8 = 235,929,600 Bytes per second just to transmit the video data. Even assuming that a lossless compression scheme can shave off 50% you still need about 118 MB/s just to transmit that. That's an OC3 line just for gaming. Of course you also need a connection to your service provider that imposes little more than a few milliseconds of lag in order to get somewhat responsive controls. Thus, in order to play a SaaS'd FPS you'd need one dedicated ultra-low latency OC3 line to your provider per player. I doubt that's going to be cheaper than a top-of-the-line gaming PC and DSL.

Peer-to-peer software often happens to be a filesharing client. While that would work on an SaaS provider's server I doubt that people are going to let someone else store their downloaded data - especially as most shared files are either illicit or Linux; both things you want to have locally, not on someone else's system where you don't have any deep access anyway.
There is the advantage of the SaaS server running your P2P software day and night, but then you have the problem of probably not having any dedicated ports (at least without paying extra), thus the software will likely work worse then it would on a local machine - if at all.

Having a teleconferencing app on a remote server makes little sense - you still need to transmit virtually all data to your local machine (as you want to see and hear people when teleconferencing) and teleconferencing clients aren't such resource hogs that there's an urgent need to put them on some server. Thus, if there are any gains to be made from SaaS, they're minimal.

Robot control (whether for medical use or something else) can be divided into two fields:
a) You send the robot a list of instructions to follow, the list is stored in the robot's memory and then executed. Replacing ICs with remote connections is usually not a good idea and software that sends an ASCII file to some computer doesn't justify renting time on someone's application server.
b) You control the robot remotely by hand, using realtime feedback, for example via video. In this case you want to avoid anything that imposes further lag (such as a server between you and the robot) and you have a situation similar to that of teleconferencing: You don't have any substantial bandwidth gains and the control software isn't what you'd put on a remote server.


SaaS and remote applications might have some merit, but they're not the right tool for every job.

Re:Consolidations of web forms with submit buttons

[Bryansix]

I agree that SaaS does not solve all problems. As a model it is an ideal. For Gaming of course it makes sense to actually RUN the program on the local machine. That doesn't mean any program needs to be installed though. Basically this is a client-server architecture while still using the software as a service model. The idea is that program updates, long term data storage, etc all be handled on the server. The client run on your machine but the nice thing is it doesn't matter which machine you run it on. Any computer will work as long as it is powerful enough. No pre-configuration needs to be done. When you use a new computer it needs to download the client but sure but then that's it. When the client is updated you get all the new features automatically. A good example of this is Google's line of services. They don't need clients because they are business apps not games. This model serves them well.

His real intent is pretty obvious...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read to the bottom of his blog entry, the sales pitch hits you in the face like a two-by-four:

"All computing as we know it is going to be consolidated into a few mega-clusters, and if you, Mr. Big-shot executive, have some major work to do, you should plan that you're going to be running one of them. So get on the bandwagon early, and buy lots and lots and lots of our servers."

Re: "The Network is the Computer"

[drinkypoo]

You rent a car for a weekend trip, or because the car you own is in the shop for major repairs.

This is a great example of why you're wrong. Or at least, partially wrong.

It's only the US that has so many cars. Everywhere else in the world, people are pretty likely to use public transportation. We have cars in the US because of successful lobbying - public funding for the rail network was cannibalized and applied to the highway system instead. As a result, instead of [comparatively] easily and cheaply maintained railways, we have these insanely expensive to maintain roadways, the environmental cost of having zillions of cars each with their own emissions controls which may be functioning or not, instead of a dramatically smaller number of train engines - the smaller number making emissions controls easier.

As a result of the loss of the rail network, and everyone having cars, residential areas exploded - but rail is still used for some freight, and it's otherwise advantageous to keep businesses close together because they must commonly interface with each other. So we got these intensely packed cities and incredibly spread out rural areas. As a result, most people can no longer afford to live in the cities (due to gentrification) and therefore they need a car because public transportation can not effectively serve the needs of a highly distributed population.

However, in the cities, one typically does not need a car at all. The bulk of your groceries can be ordered, and your perishables can be picked up by hand. Because the population is high there are lots of places to shop, so anywhere you go there is typically someplace to get the goods you want/need. Appliances, likewise, can be delivered. And since the population is packed in, public transportation is an effective means of daily travel. Then, people only rent a car when they need one, such as when they are going on a trip.

Another time people rent cars is when they need a vehicle that has capabilities that the one they currently own lacks. For example, if I need to move a large piece of equipment, but I drive a hatchback, if I'm not just paying someone to ship my equipment, I'm going to need to rent a flatbed truck to get it from point A to point B.

Of course, some people who live in the city have and use a car even though they don't need one - they want the "freedom" of being able to decide where they go (even though everything related to cars is heavily regulated.)

The situation with software is similar. Some people use bought-and-owned (well, the companies will tell you that it's all licensed, but that's another conversation) software because they feel that they should, that they need to. That they can't trust anything else. But other people, and I would guess that it's most people, use that kind of software because they can't use anything else. In order to make use of a web office suite feasible, for example, you need a fast, always-on network connection, that is as reliable as your need/desire to use the software. This is only recently coming to the majority of people on this planet - and consequently, software as a service is only just now picking up speed.

Finally, in some cases, it will make more sense to lease some software short-term for a specific project than to purchase it - to cover short-term needs that are not solved by your current software.

Re: "The Network is the Computer"

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading some of the EULAs, you might as well be renting.

We will only need 5 computers globally

[infofc]

Here we go again. I guess it is just how you end up thinking when you have been part of a big organisation for too long. I suppose the guy sees a future where 5 computers run all the worlds software!?

Re:We will only need 5 computers globally

[Raffaello]

Actually what he should have said is, given the current direction of the company, in the future there will be only 5 sun servers left globally.

Not GMail, but an electronic Iron Mountain.

[Kadin2048]

That example sounds more to me like a reason why you should have off-site storage of all your email. By mandating that your employees use web services for their email and IM (which is also covered by SOX, IIRC) you can make sure that things aren't scattered all over mailservers in various locations, or on end-user machines where they're not subject to expiry rules.

Maybe not a "consumer-grade" service like GMail, sure, but that doesn't mean web services are out, it just means there's a market for web-delivered services that have guaranteed uptimes and data security guarantees (perhaps they're bonded).

Lots of companies are required to be compliant with SOX and other documentation rules, but don't have the resources to do all the management that's required to do it properly. In many cases, they're just cruising along, hoping they don't get audited. Being able to offload that responsibility to a third party (with the appropriate credentials and guarantees, and the requisite cost) would not be as unpopular as I think you think it would be.

Lots of companies push paper records storage and management out to companies like Iron Mountain; there's no reason why they wouldn't do the same thing with data.

Re: "The Network is the Computer"

[Dragonslicer]

Bingo!

Flame On!

[Bryansix]

Wow! That's all I can say to the response this article has received so far. Flame, Flame and more Flame. Look, there are reasons to have application service providers. I understand the arguments against the idea (data integrity, don't pay the bill and lose the data, etc.) but there are pros to the argument as well. For one systems like this can be deployed in such a way that LAN's are irrelevant as well as VPN's. A user instead can be given a secure connection via a website to any application/service they need. This means distributed user bases can now collaborate. I know you can do this yourself but the work involved and the capital expenditure precludes it from being an option for many businesses. Secondly the service provider can be responsible for data backup, 24/7/365 service and reliable uptime. When the service fails, the contract can state that the company buying the service gets credited back for the downtime. If the company ran the service itself then that would be an out of pocket loss. Lastly, it is simply more efficient for an ASP to specialize in what they do then for every little company around to hire a huge staff of people to set up their own special solution to a common problem.

Re:Flame On!

[Anonymous Coward]

you and others like yourself seem to miss multiple glaringly obvious reasons why this utopian internet will NEVER exist.

companies and organisations compete, each one wants to leverage every advantage and get every foot up they can, IT is one of those areas they use to achieve this, They cannot achieve this if there competitors can also buy the same services.

People don't want central control. sure it is handy for a few services, maybe even a lot of services. But there are some things people simply will not entrust into the care of others regardless of how securely it is done. be it there private diary written in word or there personal store of porn.

"when the service fails" as you so eloquently put it they get a refund or credit. ahhhh guess what this is not acceptable in many industries, services quite often need to be made FAIL SAFE. eg I am currently typing this from a network that has a multiple redundant set of network paths and even 2 data centers with certain servers replicated to local infrastructure. This simply CANNOT be provided online, online has to many points of failure, eg, the comms line, the local exchange the links to other datacenters.

specialisation for an ASP while providing better knowledge and skills destroys flexibility and customisations which many organisations use again to get a leg up over there competitors.

Basically your software as a service world will never eventuate, it will succeed in some limited areas, but the network world of movies and the idiotic sun CEO's dreams (sun have been predicting this for over a decade now hoping it would catch on) will never truly eventuate.

Re:Flame On!

[Bryansix]

Anything that can be done locally as far as redundancy can be done online. You just need private closed loop T-1 connections to each data center that carries the redundant services. In fact the hosted VOIP solution I am looking at allows me to connect to each data center this way and the hosting company has multiple redundant connections between data centers. Basically, the exact same way you talk about having redundancy within your own data centers, this company talks about having redundancy in theirs and this is a hosted solution. Face it Coward; you have no idea what you are talking about.

re: depreciation

[King_TJ]

The "depreciation" argument is somewhat compelling, but when it comes to computers and software, I think it's too simplistic. Yes, I.T. is always a "cost" for business. But many businesses have an I.T. dept. because they realize it's a cost that produces a net benefit for the business as a whole.

If leases were really as great a deal for people as they promise, few people would ever want to offer them. (What are the sellers doing with the off-lease items? Obviously, they've found ways to recoup the depreciation, and likely a little extra too.)

Sure, there are tasks for which farming out the app makes perfect sense. (EG. Internet search related tasks requiring a pre-existing large search engine's database.) But in examples like Microsoft Office, I don't see the sensibility in "leasing" at all. You add too many additional "points of failure" to what should be a straightforward application to run. A router goes out? You can't work on your documents. Your Internet provider has an outage? Same problem. You run into a need for a non-networked, stand-alone PC to do some spreadsheet or word processing tasks? Sorry, no can do. H.R. says they have sensitive documents they're required by law not to share with anyone? How are they going to feel about Microsoft hosting/storing all of those on *their* systems, and only accessible by H.R. as long as they keep paying their monthly or annual renewal fees?

wrong focus

[bitspotter]

Losing competition on the Internet doesn't concern me that much.

When we start lose //cooperation// on the Internet, then we'll be in trouble.

I mean, that is what the Internet was invented to do, now, wasn't it?

Re:wrong focus

[Anonymous Coward]

It was invented as a distributed system resistant nuclear attack.

Oh, really?

[stonecypher]

I remember when sun predicted this about their search engine Altavista, their backend Enterprise Java and about Red Hat's linux deployment, too.

Nostradamus they are not.

Re:Oh, really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats because Sun isn't Sun anymore. The current version of "Sun" is a company that builds chear crap in China with software and integration engineers under contract from a company based in the Bahamas and then sells you support which is outsourced from India. They layed off everyone a few years you know.

perhaps

[idlake]

But no matter how much Sun talks about it, they won't be the company delivering it and they won't get rich from it, given the products they actually ship.

and when?

[ghostbar38]

When are we going to move out to the internet for living? I wan't to be eternal... :)

Sun == nuts?

[walterbyrd]

Sun is always saying crazy things, and then always changing their mind.

Wasn't it sun that said that hardware would be free, and only hardware would be sold? I can not even keep track of the times that sun has changed their position on: x86, Linux, and GPL.

I don't think any of the other major tech companies are like this.

Re: depreciation

[ffejie]

You bring up a lot of good points. My biggest concern would be traveling. As someone who does a significant amount of travel for business, I would be worried if we went to a network based Office Suite. It's still not easy for me to get internet access everywhere -- and planes are still a nightmare. I can usually hop on a WiFi point at the airport or the train, but not always. One thing I used to be able to do is setup expense reports on the plane on the way home. I liked doing it then because I was almost always bored, but the expenses were fresh in my mind. Now the company has moved to a completely web based expense system. While it's great when I'm in the office, if I'm on a plane, I can't do anything except organize my receipts.

If the network is to provide me all my services and applications, we need to get better at providing internet access everywhere. 95% of the time having internet is good, but not perfect. Similarly, we need to up the access in many places. Public hot spots are great for checking news or maybe getting on email really quickly, but are unresponsive if you have to work on web applications.

Re: "The Network is the Computer"

[darkwhite]

they want the "freedom" of being able to decide where they go (even though everything related to cars is heavily regulated.)

It's absolutely ridiculous to imply that a car doesn't offer a massive increase in personal freedom. If you disagree, you probably aren't using your freedom much.

We've Heard It All Before From Sun

[Master of Transhuman]

"The network is the computer."

No, it's not. Never was, never will be.

There's a REASON you have TWO concepts: "computer" and "network".

Conflating the two is just marketing hype from people who want to control your access to knowledge and computing power. That's the deal with Microsoft and it's the same deal from Sun - which is why Sun is ultimately doomed, despite OSS'ing Java and the like.

Sun - and Microsoft - just don't get it.

Re:We've Heard It All Before From Sun

[jdigriz]

The network is the computer from the perspective of the naive user, who, when denied access to a web application due to grievous misconfiguration of his network's firewall or due to network failure calls his IT guy and says "The computer's broken". Previously the user accessed standalone apps on his unnetworked computer. He was able to do his work. Now he has moved to a web application, and he doesn't get to use his app unless the network works. So, by dividing aspects of the software application between client and server, the network has become just as much a critical component of the computer as the memory bus. And more irritating to troubleshoot as the entire end-to-end configuration of client and server connection is generally not under the control of any one technician.

Re: "The Network is the Computer"

[drinkypoo]

It's absolutely ridiculous to imply that a car doesn't offer a massive increase in personal freedom. If you disagree, you probably aren't using your freedom much.

Does a car offer a net increase in personal freedom? If you have a car you must have a valid mailing address, you must submit to a number of indignities normally reserved for criminals including photographing and fingerprinting, you must provide a valid and registered birth certificate (no photocopies.) You are told where you can go, how fast you can go, and that you must do a number of things in between point A and point B. On top of this, you lose a number of your rights when you drive. In order to get a license you must sign an agreement to take breath/blood tests. While you cannot be arrested for failing to provide ID when on foot, you CAN be arrested for failing to provide ID when you're in a car - even if you are a passenger. And it's also dramatically easier to show probable cause to search a car than a house, so your possessions are not secure either (not even lawfully. We all know there's plenty of illegal searches done.)

It gives you more freedom of motion, but it decreases your privacy. Is there a net win? I propose that a working, useful public transportation network would provide much more freedom. While they can videotape you, they typically do not require any identification to use such systems, and it's easy enough to videotape drivers with roadside cameras - plus there's the whole license plate thing.

Heh.

[Anonymous Coward]

"When we start lose //cooperation// on the Internet, then we'll be in trouble.

I mean, that is what the Internet was invented to do, now, wasn't it?"

That's right! Slashdot is a prime example of it, too!

In other news...

[melikamp]

In other news:

After 30 years of continuous development, Free Software still does not require the user to bend over and get reamed from behind by the throbbing memeber of corporate greed.

This is just PR pitch, folks, pure make-belief. That's what they really really want, but even they (Sun) no longer have any real hope. I mean, they are GPL-ing Java. I didn't think I'd live to see that happen, but Moglen was right: the non-free software circus is in its last season.

Hey Sun: What do you really want to sell me?

[xoundmind]

Online application services or one of these?

Hell yeah!

[Jesus_666]

The network is the computer? I can totally buy into that shit. That concept's gold. In the future one computer ain't enough to do those futuristic tasks we do. No, the PC is replaced by a network of computers. Everybody has his own one and techies will have a whole network-network.

You know, next version of Windows? You'll need a cluster to run that bitch. And you'll love it. Linux won't even boot on anything less than a 40-machine grid. The difference between a low-consumption compu-net and a regular one will be that the low-consumption one draws just 20 kW idle. And components? Each component comes with its own NIC, which in turn has its own smaller NIC just because it's cool like that. And that shit'll run on goddamn IPV6 so if you want to check your GPU's temperature from work you just call its IP address. Bam, it's magic.

Notebooks? They'll be all wireless. It's like a fucking bluetooth fiesta in your pocket and the whole subnet's invited. You can literally rip out the notebook's display and toss it across the room and never lose track of your desktop. It's going to be so goddamn networked that even the HVD-Rs will have their own WLAN NIC so you don't even have to put them into the drive anymore, it's that cool. Even the damn power supply's wireless so you don't even have cables anymore.

You know, providers? In the future it's not about who delivers your broadband, it's about who keeps your three-phase power lines lit. Apple compu-nets will ship with their own fucking nuclear pile just so you don't have to worry about electricity bills. And nobody cares about the readiation because if you get close to your compu-net and the hard drives all spin up at once the drive motors' EM field will cook you anyway. And you know, HFS+? The successor's gonna be AppleTalk.


The network is the computer. Best goddamn idea I've ever heard.

Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Business Person,

I'm not meant to be competitive. That isn't what I was designed for. Stop taking your MBAs and business plans and foisting them on me, then calling me names when they don't work.

Signed,
The Internet.

Re: "The Network is the Computer"

[darkwhite]

Look, you can be paranoid about your privacy all you want, but if you cannot appreciate the versatility and freedom a car allows - not just in the United States, but especially here - you're either a sorry hermit or are being intellectually weak. I won't even start listing the number of ways having constant access to a car has improved my life.

I think the capital expenditures on public transportation are too low in the US, and I would gladly use public transportation instead of a car to commute were it available in those places where I can't bike to my workplace, but that doesn't prevent me from appreciating the tremendous freedom a car allows me.