[and most people don't even know what it is!]
I've spoken about this software before, I think, but it deserves its own blog post.
And what piece of software is the most important for the last 10 years?
*drum roll*
Google Gears!
"Oh yes of cour- eh, what?!" I hear you say.
Google Gears is a silly little piece of software that merely allows one to run javascript offline. It tricks the browser into thinking that changes are going to the net but are actually stored locally. When an Internet connection is available, the databases are synchronised. Very technical stuff.
But what it really allows is a PC to run only web applications and allows web applications to be feature rich as desktop ones. What is really allows is GMail to compete with Outlook and Google Apps to compete with Office. It not only allows Google to compete directly with Microsoft head-to-head but gives them a slight lead.
Since Google's applications are designed with sharing in mind and Microsoft's are not, Google is ahead in this respect. And since Google's applications are on the Web, you can get to them pretty much from anywhere.
And since Google are driven by a policy of "good-enough as fast as possible" their applications are sleek and ready to be used online - Microsoft have some way to go if they want to compete in this area.
In the mid-90s I remember a whole host of companies decided to take on Microsoft directly and all of them came off second best. Netscape (with navigator - remember that?) , SUN (SunOffice, Java, Net-PC) , IBM (OS/2), Apple (pre-Jobs, iPod).
Netscape is no longer but they did spawn Firefox which is eating into IE's market share in a big way. SUN has some amazing software like Java and SunOffice (or OpenOffice) but they never really impacted on Microsoft's dominance as they looked like they might have. The less said about OS/2 - the better. And Apple reached their lowest point when Microsoft invested in them to keep the company alive.
SUN's vision for a NetPC is coming about again with Google's ChromeOS. The only difference really is that SUN's vision had lots of pretty blue SUN Servers being the central store for all data and apps while Google's vision has lots of ugly grey and black Internet Servers being the central store. (Internet being the important part). Google are making true what SUN never could - "The (Inter)Network is the Computer".
Whether Google will succeed where many have failed remains to be seen but they have lined up some interesting tools to get themselves with at least a chance and at the heart of each of these tools is Google Gears making it all possible.
Showing posts with label 90s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 90s. Show all posts
Monday, December 7, 2009
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Virtualisation - Welcome Back to the 90s.
I've been thinking about this for a while but this blog post by Pascal Meunier pretty much sums up my feelings about Virtualisation.
Back in the 90s when the Internet was new-ish and just becoming important all the machines running it were Unix boxes. (Maybe not all, but most). And a 386 would typically run DNS, sendmail, telnet (shell accounts), ftp and apache. All on the same box.
Security wasn't so tight in those days but it was usually good enough and the box could happily do what it needed to do.
Along came Microsoft and produced the idea of "one box - one service". You can't seriously consider running your domain controller as a file server. What are you thinking? And to put mail on the same box? No way. In fact, your SQL server is running under significant load, chain a few together.
And companies would buy into this concept. Microsoft were happy - more licenses. All the PC guys were happy too - more money. More complexity - more jobs.
Essentially what has happened now is that Moores Law has kicked in and has caught up with the complexity of Microsoft's software to the point where one server box can run multiple applications on it. Imagine that. But Microsoft has planted the one-service-one-box concept so well that it is now part of IT law. File server and mail server on one box? But wait...whats this button over here....? Vir-vir-virtualisation.
And now we have the tools to allow us to once again run multiple applications on one server without having to admit that one-application-one-server never made sense.
To be fair - Virtualisation does have other advantages - running multiple Operating Systems for example, being able to easily move a virtual machine from one box to another (without configuration issues), being able to make a snapshot backup of a system.
But running multiple applications on one box is not a huge win.
Back in the 90s when the Internet was new-ish and just becoming important all the machines running it were Unix boxes. (Maybe not all, but most). And a 386 would typically run DNS, sendmail, telnet (shell accounts), ftp and apache. All on the same box.
Security wasn't so tight in those days but it was usually good enough and the box could happily do what it needed to do.
Along came Microsoft and produced the idea of "one box - one service". You can't seriously consider running your domain controller as a file server. What are you thinking? And to put mail on the same box? No way. In fact, your SQL server is running under significant load, chain a few together.
And companies would buy into this concept. Microsoft were happy - more licenses. All the PC guys were happy too - more money. More complexity - more jobs.
Essentially what has happened now is that Moores Law has kicked in and has caught up with the complexity of Microsoft's software to the point where one server box can run multiple applications on it. Imagine that. But Microsoft has planted the one-service-one-box concept so well that it is now part of IT law. File server and mail server on one box? But wait...whats this button over here....? Vir-vir-virtualisation.
And now we have the tools to allow us to once again run multiple applications on one server without having to admit that one-application-one-server never made sense.
To be fair - Virtualisation does have other advantages - running multiple Operating Systems for example, being able to easily move a virtual machine from one box to another (without configuration issues), being able to make a snapshot backup of a system.
But running multiple applications on one box is not a huge win.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Eventually we may make it back to the early nineties (Part 2 of the 70s post)
In 1995 IBM bought Lotus for $3.5 billion. Cash.
Read that again.
Sure, Lotus 1-2-3 was still around and still (if I recall correctly) the market leader. Office95 total killed that. But it was not Lotus's most famous software package that IBM wanted. They wanted Lotus Notes. And they paid $3.5 billion (cash money) for the pleasure.
IBM Lotus Notes is still around today and very well respected. And used by some very big companies. But I really don't think it had the impact it should have. I think the reason is that Microsoft Exchange adapted more quickly to what companies wanted.
But, didn't need.
The thing is that IT has (unfortunately) positioned itself both as a strategic tool and a grudge expense. (It is also an operational tool..hmm..maybe we'll come back to this point... but I want to focus on strategic).
What the above means is that companies have salivated at the idea of using technology to beat their competitors. And it is very quick for something to go from stategic (read: competitive advantage) to operational (read:everyone is doing it). So companies push projects out quickly. If you are a leader you want to be that way as soon as possible..if you are catching up - the same. You also want to do it as cheaply as possible, obviously.
So the poor IT department has to roll out projects as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible. And probably with very little planning or training.
So, with the choice between a proper system for managing staff using workflow, perfectly designed job descriptions and properly though out business processes that all just works or a quickly cobbled mail system with a nice directory system and calendar - what would be the choice of most IT decision makers. Yep, the cheaper and quicker.
Now, don't get me wrong - I don't know enough about Lotus Notes to promote it as a perfect system, nor do I know enough about Exchange to put it down. Thats not my point here. And, in fact, I bet that a good system where Exchange is used as part of a well organised workflow solution would probably be better than a badly created Notes implementation.
My point is - we have now, through the mistakes of the past come to a point where it can happen that a business is not sure what information it has, (perhaps even) what machines it has and what people it has. There are ways to track all of these but the computer systems were never designed for that.
In the heady, do anything days gone by companies from small to big did things like this:
If processes had been in place long ago this would not be an issue. Now, you have 10000 user accounts, no paperwork. Who of those is still employed and has all the access (and only the access) they need. If you start a clean-up now - you will piss everyone off, from the top, all the way down. Woops...due to IT's need to impress ages ago and business's need for speed you are the bad guy.
But it will happen. With (more) money, time and tears.
Slowly companies will realise what problems they have and how insecure they are. Or someone out there will show them. And they will put the procedures in place, the technology will follow and the organisation will be turned into a perfect workflow oriented organisation.
And there will be some ROI as people's jobs are down quicker, smoother and with less paperwork. Private information of 3rd parties will be in secure databases. Databases will be backed up and the information will not leak out through discontinued servers and stolen laptops.
And it will all be good.
And then we will have caught up to the vision that IBM had in the early nineties when they paid paid $3.5 billion cash for Lotus - a company that know who it is and what it is doing with IT systems that know the same.
Read that again.
Sure, Lotus 1-2-3 was still around and still (if I recall correctly) the market leader. Office95 total killed that. But it was not Lotus's most famous software package that IBM wanted. They wanted Lotus Notes. And they paid $3.5 billion (cash money) for the pleasure.
IBM Lotus Notes is still around today and very well respected. And used by some very big companies. But I really don't think it had the impact it should have. I think the reason is that Microsoft Exchange adapted more quickly to what companies wanted.
But, didn't need.
The thing is that IT has (unfortunately) positioned itself both as a strategic tool and a grudge expense. (It is also an operational tool..hmm..maybe we'll come back to this point... but I want to focus on strategic).
What the above means is that companies have salivated at the idea of using technology to beat their competitors. And it is very quick for something to go from stategic (read: competitive advantage) to operational (read:everyone is doing it). So companies push projects out quickly. If you are a leader you want to be that way as soon as possible..if you are catching up - the same. You also want to do it as cheaply as possible, obviously.
So the poor IT department has to roll out projects as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible. And probably with very little planning or training.
So, with the choice between a proper system for managing staff using workflow, perfectly designed job descriptions and properly though out business processes that all just works or a quickly cobbled mail system with a nice directory system and calendar - what would be the choice of most IT decision makers. Yep, the cheaper and quicker.
Now, don't get me wrong - I don't know enough about Lotus Notes to promote it as a perfect system, nor do I know enough about Exchange to put it down. Thats not my point here. And, in fact, I bet that a good system where Exchange is used as part of a well organised workflow solution would probably be better than a badly created Notes implementation.
My point is - we have now, through the mistakes of the past come to a point where it can happen that a business is not sure what information it has, (perhaps even) what machines it has and what people it has. There are ways to track all of these but the computer systems were never designed for that.
In the heady, do anything days gone by companies from small to big did things like this:
- A server comes to end of life and is removed from the network. But, a project that is way over budget needs a not-so-powerful server so the old server is used. Maybe the server was an HR server (inside and fairly safe) and is now a webserver (open to the world). Because its a mission to re-install the OS, the box is left as is and just has a webserver added to it. Your HR information is now at risk and because there was no formal installation or project - the new server is a ghost server, only noticed if/when it goes down.
- The mail server administrator moves into a new job but his mail server access is not taken away. He now has access to all the mails on the server.
- Even worse - he leaves the company and his account is not removed.
- The CEO's personal assistant who has access to all his files downloads a valentines day card that is actually a trojan. It is able to install itself because she has Administrative rights to her PC.
If processes had been in place long ago this would not be an issue. Now, you have 10000 user accounts, no paperwork. Who of those is still employed and has all the access (and only the access) they need. If you start a clean-up now - you will piss everyone off, from the top, all the way down. Woops...due to IT's need to impress ages ago and business's need for speed you are the bad guy.
But it will happen. With (more) money, time and tears.
Slowly companies will realise what problems they have and how insecure they are. Or someone out there will show them. And they will put the procedures in place, the technology will follow and the organisation will be turned into a perfect workflow oriented organisation.
And there will be some ROI as people's jobs are down quicker, smoother and with less paperwork. Private information of 3rd parties will be in secure databases. Databases will be backed up and the information will not leak out through discontinued servers and stolen laptops.
And it will all be good.
And then we will have caught up to the vision that IBM had in the early nineties when they paid paid $3.5 billion cash for Lotus - a company that know who it is and what it is doing with IT systems that know the same.
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