Author: Alex Williams

IBM is extending its cloud infrastructure to the IBM Cloud and enhancing its offering with commercial- and enterprise-grade test and development services with a broad reach of partners and collaborative approaches. The effort follows its launch in November of a test-and-development cloud-based service. With this announcement, IBM is laying the foundation for a cloud ecosystem that will differentiate the company from Google, Microsoft and Amazon.

Perhaps one of the most compelling aspects of the news is that PayPal is joining IBM as a partner to offer services to enterprise clients. This puts IBM on a a direct trajectory into the heart of the market – with Amazon in its sights. By partnering with PayPal, IBM is laying the framework for more transaction-oriented services with smart phone customers the prime target for applications developed in its partner community.

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Even more significantly, this is Paypal’s first major foray into cloud computing. The company will work with IBM Labs to develop commerce systems for developers. The developers will primarily be creating their own applications, which will be sold across a PayPal platform, providing a complete set of services for building, selling and distributing.

IBM also announced partnerships with Novell, Red Hat and others that will enhance its platform as a base for enterprise-grade services such as cloud security and cloud management.

The initiative extends to the private cloud, where IBM will also offer services such as test, development and tools that fulfill the scope of a virtual ecosystem on a private data network.

Of real interest to us is the company’s offering of a collaborative network on IBM developerWorks that will act as a learning hub for IT managers about the various elements that make up the IBM Cloud.

We’ll have more in a followup post today.

Discuss

We take a look at the future of cloud computing services this week. We want to know: What companies do you think will be at the top of the cloud world in five years?

This past week, we had 93 people respond to the question:
‘Is There A Place For Open-Source in the Data Center?” The respondents were pretty much in full support of the open approach. Of the 93 people who responded, 83 said, yes, there is a place for open-source. But we wonder what it will take to get such a movement to a pace of note. We do have faith in the open-source way but how will this effort transfer to the data center?

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The organizers have the right idea.

Michael Manos of Loose Bolts writes:

“If you think of the Linux movement, and all of those who actively participate in submitting enhancements, features, even pulling together specific build packages for distribution, one could even see such things emerging in the data center engineering realm. In fact with the myriad of emerging technologies assisting in more energy efficiency, greater densities, differences in approach to economization (air or water), use of containers or non use of containers, its easy to see the potential for this component based design.”

Let’s move on to this week’s question. It’s certainly true that cloud computing is one of the most category filled markets you can find. Platform-as-a-Service, Software-as-a-Service – the list goes on.

We do see the same big name companies making their stake in the market, no matter what their category. It’s evident that there will likely be a handful standing over the next several years. Who will they be?

Discuss

We’re seeing a lot more discussion on the topic of single-sign on for SaaS environments. The issue is becoming more important as security emerges as a top concern for companies considering making the move to cloud-based environments.

OneLogin is a new company that offers single sign-on, cloud-based service that allows for small and mid-sized companies to enjoy the same level of security as large enterprise companies.

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Most small companies do not deploy security methods that employ SAML, (Security Assertion Markup Language) an XML-based standard for exchanging authentication and authorization data between security domains. It’s expensive to deploy. Open-source tools do exist but require someone to understand how it works and deployed in a work environment.

OneLogin configures a browser to give the experience of a single sign in. It bypasses the traditional user name/password system, which often has gaping security holes.

To us, this is a big reason why the new breed of SaaS services are not taken seriously by security conscious enterprise customers. The security can not be trusted.

With OneLogin, a person would be directed to a login page that would automatically fill-in the information for the person. The person is provided their own OpenID account. OneLogin knows the person’s session so no second authentication is required.

OneLogin’s infrastructure sits in the cloud, which means that a customer does not have to maintain dedicated servers and people to keep the system working.

There is no install. Rackspace hosts the web server and the database.

Two-factor authentication is available. People may use a Yubi key, which used a USB port to plug in and activate a random number authorization. People may also soon be able to use Verisign’s VIP service that gives a mobile device the capability to generate a new password every 30 sec. You then input the number within 30 seconds to receive permission.

The OneLogin service works on most SaaS services, including Google Apps. There is a free service. For SAML capabilities, the cost is $8 per user per month.

Discuss

Fascinated by the cloud and what it means for the future of Web apps, social gaming, open-source and the after life? Then you have plenty to keep you busy if you are heading to SXSW this year.

This is part of a series of ReadWriteWeb guides to SXSW Interactive 2010. If this guide isn’t your cup of tea, be sure to check back for more information soon!

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Can You Run a ‘Serverless’ Business?

This discussion looks like one of the better cloud panels at SXSW. It features panelists such as Amazon CTO Werner Vogels, who is there to discuss how cloud computing platforms have evolved so that it is possible to run a ”serverless” business with confidence.

Accessibility: What It Is For and Where It is Going

How does the cloud affect accessibility? Will cloud-computing allow for a metaphorical curb cut out, allowing access to rich Internet applications? Ahhh – another example of how cloud computing is affecting all aspects of our word.

From the SXSW guide:

“Could a Software as a Service (SaaS) model deliver assistive technologies as a cloud-based service? The National Public Inclusive Infrastructure (NPII) is trying to do just that. As a facilitator for more rapid deployment of assistive technologies and a means to prototype new business models for emerging assistive technologies, AT could become part of an extensive infrastructure of readily available, electronic curb cuts that allow for seeamless access for a broader range of users than have been included to date.”

Drupal in the Cloud!
Pantheon is an open-source cloud hosting initiative for the Drupal development community. Josh Koenig will examine “The Cloud” as a concept, look at the marketplace for cloud services, and dig into what it takes to build an application on a cloud-based platform.

Our Interactive Culture Clouds

Were not sure about this one. Looks like it’s made for SXSW with its discussions about how business and love meet. We’re uncertain how the cloud plays into this one but just about everything does these days, doesn’t it? Next!

You Developed the Content — Now Build The Hardware

The cloud is sending developers back to the labs to rethink and build new hardware that fits the wave of cloud-based applications in the market. Cool! From the SXSW Guide:

“This presentation discusses how software/content developers can use open-source hardware to build devices that integrate tightly with their applications.”

Become Immortal: Understanding the Digital After Life

Now talk about ghosts in the machine. Just think, when we die our identities will float in cloud networks all over the world. This may be the most philosophical discussion around cloud computing that we see at SXSW. It’s time to explore the digital beyond!

Finally, can one man be a cloud? The cloud is just about anything at SXSW so a man on a bike with a wifi hotspot in his backpack must qualify. Look for “The Jason Cloud,” as you walk the streets of Austin. Considering AT&T’s service, you may want to hire a bike taxi and follow Jason around for a few days.

Discuss

Since the announcement went live yesterday about the Google Marketplace, we’ve had a number of companies come to us about how its applications will fit with the service.

We’ll do a fuller look at these companies this week but for some immediate perspective we decided to take a look at Zoho, a service that competes with Google Apps. So it is it interesting that the company joined Google Apps Marketplace in its launch.

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Buy why would Zoho offer its applications to integrate with Google? Yes, the companies compete. But Raju Vegesna of Zoho says that it is far more important to complement Google Apps. Over the past few years the company has worked to make it simple for Zoho customers to use its services in tandem with Google Apps. Zoho offers Google Sign-in, Google Apps Sign-in and recently it integrated with Google Docs.

Vegesna gave us three reasons why Zoho decided to be part of the launch. His perspectives should provide some insights about the symbiotic relationship Google Apps Marketplace will foster.

Extending The Relationship

For many developers, integrating with Google Apps represents a significant business opportunity. Google announced at its launch that it passed the 25 million customer mark over the weekend.

Vegesna:

“First, we have 50% more apps than Google, especially on the business side (CRM, Project Management, Web Conferencing etc). This means, these additional apps can really complement Google Apps. Google has over 20 million users on G Apps and our Business apps can be sold to those customers. “

Google Dominates The Landscape

To play in this era, you have to play with Google. They dominate as much as any company has in the past 30 years. The domination in large part is now solidified by its investment in its cloud infrastructure.

Vegesna:

“Second, we understand that this is going to be a Google dominated eco-system (IBM dominated Mainframe era, Microsoft dominated PC era and Google will dominate the web era) and we wanted to be an important player in this web era. We talked more about this here and here.”

A Platform Built On Email, Not CRM

Yesterday, we touched on why the marketplace makes sense for companies standardized on Google Apps. With all the contacts in one place, people can add applications to fine tune Google Apps. Does a company start with the same foundation if the platform is built on CRM?

Vegesna:

“Third, when someone builds a platform, email is a great app to build the platform around, rather than CRM (which salesforce did). We think it’ll be a good and succesful platform for online apps which will move the web app momentum forward and we want to be a key player (the same way Adobe was a key player in PC era).”

For more about the Zoho integration:

Discuss

Microsoft Outlook has historically been at the heart of document-based environments that for many years have ruled the enterprise.

But the walls that have guarded this document-based world are crumbling fast. Outlook is now more than a message center. It is becoming a collaborative space where the lines between Google Docs and other social applications start to blur.

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Three extensions exemplify this trend. These services are quite similar. Xobni has the longest track record. it started as a consumer-based service, gaining a following for its search capabilities in Outlook. Search is Outlook’s inherent weakness. Neither DocVerse nor Harmony have deep search capabilities like Xobni. That may only be a temporary issue for DocVerse. Last week, Google announced that it had acquired DocVerse. We expect that will in some way translate into better search in the weeks and months ahead for the DoVerse service.

Harmony

Harmony is the newest of the group. The Mainsoft service is a mash up between Google Docs and Outlook. It also puts SharePoint directly into Outlook. Like most Outlook extensions, Harmony pulls Google Docs or Sharepoint into an Outlook sidebar.

The service is intended to ease attachment overload by creating a central place where people can access Google Docs. It’s a drag and drop environment that allows people to drag email attachments into the Harmony sidebar.

A document may also be dragged into an email where it appears as a link for the recipient. The recipient may access the document by signing into their Google Docs or Google Apps account.

The service is now available as a free download. It is compatible with Sharepoint 2007 and Sharepoint 2010. It will be available later this year as an extension for Microsoft Office.

DocVerse

DocVerse plays a similar role to Harmony. The service synchronizes in the Outlook Sidebar. The widget associates a link to the document that is getting the edit. Every modification is synced. When multiple people work on a document, the updates are made through the plug-in and versions are stored online.

Xobni

Xobni provides what Outlook really needs. Great search. It will search Outlook and external social networks and third party applications to get a fuller profile of the contact. In November, the company released Xobni Enterprise. The service gives I.T. administrators the ability to deploy and manage the plugin across the enterprise. it also offers integration across services such as Salesforce CRM and Sharepoint.

Outlook Has Come A Long Way

The old days are over for Outlook. It’s now entering an era where the degree of collaboration will center around a hyperlinked environment more so than document-based systems. The enterprise is becoming more web-oriented and Outlook is no exception to the change.

Discuss

Google launched an application marketplace today comprised of services from third-party providers that integrate with the Google Apps ecosystem.

The news has been anticipated for some time. In particular, it shows how much Google is embracing open-standards and leveraging its search and Google Apps platform to attract third-party developers.

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Google made the announcement at its Google Campfire One event tonight. The emphasis Google is putting on the enterprise is apparent in how much attention the company put into the event. Over and over we heard that Google passed the 25 million customer mark over the weekend.

It is that mark that Google is using as its hook for attracting developers to its platform. Developers will be charged $100 to join the program. With that entrance fee, they may add as many apps as they wish to the Google Apps Marketplace.

The marketplace supports OpenID to provide a single sign-on for developers. Authorization is integrated into the platform. The customers get access through OAuth, the open standard for authorizing users.

A “manifest page” is the foundation for the service. The developers provides information when adding the application to the marketplace that identifies it. Developers then provide additional information about the product.

The system is a controlled. Application developers submit the app for approval, which might take a few days.

Intuit provided an example of how the system works by showing how payroll could be managed. The customer accesses the account. With Google Apps integration, the customer accesses an account where they have the employee information. It’s that collected contact network that is then integrated with the payroll application.

Atlassian showed how Studio, its project management application, would integrate with GMail and Google Apps. Again, if the company is standardized on Google Apps, the information is available through the network.

Manymoon is another project mangement application that was demonstrated. It uses Google Apps to develop features such as a calendar, showing how a startup can leverage Google Apps to add features to its service.

Other companies that were a part of the initial launch include Socialwok and Appirio.

At its core, the marketplace is built upon Google’s search capabilities. Google Apps can be extended with applications. In turn, developers have access to the built-in capabilities of Google Apps.

Perhaps the greatest value to customers will be if they are centralized on Google Apps. If so, they can get some pretty powerful capabilities of the marketplace.

Discuss

The Blackberry outage that RIM does not want to talk about continues to affect people on both sides of the Atlantic with outages reported in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Some people have been without service for more than 24 hours.

The outage is a peculiar one, Data Outage News reports:

“Again, this is affecting devices on all North American carriers, BIS and BES, and it appears to be only devices on WiFi, wherein data works “sometimes” when connected via WiFi; no data when WiFi is disconnected.”

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RIM has not yet made a statement about the outage and we have to believe that this is not a smart way to handle an issue that has customers wondering if it their phone that is causing the problem.

T-Mobile has been keeping its Twitter account updated for customers affected by the outage.

We posted yesterday about the news. It was difficult to get a read on the extent of the outage but by this morning commenters were reporting a number of problems.

On Monday, Simon Benson in the United Kingdom said:

Seems to be affecting the UK as well! We’ve been out since around noon GMT on Sunday! Bit difficult remote working without access to email…

Some are considering dropping the Blackberry. Danielle Ricks posted:

“I’ve had MAJOR problems with my T-Mobile Blackberry 8900 for the past 12 hours!!! What is most disturbing is the fact that the T-Mobile techs didn’t even know there was a problem. I spent a half hour doing trouble shooting with them… after doing my OWN trouble shooting… just to FINALLY find this post telling me we ONCE AGAIN have a nationwide Blackberry outage.

I’m on my way to SXSW and I HAVE to get my emails. I LOVE T-Mobile customer service but if the Smartphone doesn’t work it won’t do me a whole lot of good. I’ve been a loyal Blackberry customer but this is my third RIM outage and I’m done! Thank you ReadWriteWeb for being on top of things *calling AT&T to inquire about an iPhone*”

The outage can’t be helping RIM right now. How many outages can users face when there are an increasing number of alternatives to their service?

We’ll update the blog when we have an update about the service being restored.

Discuss

This week’s poll is inspired our friends at CloudAve. Krishnan Subramanian wrote a post today about open-sourcing data center design.

It’s about time, isn’t it? Subramanian best point comes down to what is happening right now in the cloud computing world. The enthusiasm for cloud computing is such that there is no time to waste.

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Subramanian writes:

“Compared to other fields of IT, the innovation on the data center front is relatively slow because the industry as a whole is slow to change. With cloud computing capturing the imagination of enterprises and public, It is important to innovate rapidly on the data center side.”

We know the role open-source is playing in cloud computing. Just look at the role that Hadoop and Eucalyptus are playing in cloud computing.

But opening up the data center is a different story. It may be the last frontier and the key for opening up the enterprise to open-source initiatives.

The Open Source Data Center Initiative seems like it sees that potential. The group is challenging the powers of the engineering world by collaborating and pooling information that goes into designing and ultimately constructing data centers.

That’s pretty interesting.

So, here’s our question this week:

Last Week’s Poll: What is the top threat to cloud computing?

Last week’s poll had 244 people respond.

Top response: API’s and a poor interface. API’s are causing headaches for at least one of the leading cloud service providers.

We’ll have more later about troublesome API’s. In the meantime, what do you think? Is there a place for open-source in the data center?

Discuss

The Blackberry just doesn’t seem to have the luster it once did. Today, it had another nationwide outage.

According to Data Outage News:

“A number of users are reporting and an escalated RIM tech support call has confirmed data issues affecting WiFi devices NOT connected to a WiFi network. The outage is sporadic and issues are confirmed on at least on Verizon and T-Mobile on both US east and west coasts. Again, if you are connected to WiFi, you likely won’t notice any problems until you are out of WiFi range. This is not affecting ALL WiFi users, the reports are sporadic, but across all carriers, BIS and BES included.”

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What’s going in with the Blackberry? Once the enterprise stalwart, it is now looking like a struggling behemoth. Its interface almost seems antiquated. An analyst group is now saying the iPhone is expected to beat out the Blackberry in 2011 for the number one spot. And now we have another outage.

Twitter users are all over today’s outage. Some people are saying their service has been out since the morning. There have been some reports that the outage is international in scope.

The last Blackberry outage came in December. Reported outages also came in 2007 and 2008.

Blackberry has been facing a lot of of market pressure. The iPhone, the Android and the upcoming Windows Phone 7 Series all present challenges to the Blackberry.

A report by Trefis shows the iPhone beating out the Blackberry by 2011.

The iPhone’s surge into the business community is a major reason for it overtaking the Blackberry.

A Trefi analyst write in Forbes:

We expect Apple’s market share to overtake that of RIM by 2011, and for Apple and RIM to have 11% and 8% market share, respectively, by the end of Trefis forecast period. We believe sales of the iPhone will eventually outpace BlackBerry sales for the following reasons:

1. Apple’s ecosystem of consumer products (Macs, iPad, Apple TV) and services (iTunes, iPhone apps) make the iPhone a more attractive phone for many consumers compared to the BlackBerry

2. End of AT&T exclusivity will give Apple’s iPhone wider distribution in the US (comparable to BlackBerry distribution)

3. iPhone is making inroads with business customers that have traditionally preferred the BlackBerry

Discuss

Part of the complexity in the cloud comes down to how the data is managed within a cloud computing environment.

But even a bigger challenge is how to move applications to the cloud. How is all the data associated with an application moved to a cloud computing environment? And can you get it out?

The cloud computing world is still a bit like the Wild West. No standards exist for moving applications, much less data, which opens opportunities for companies like CloudSwitch.

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CloudSwitch is a drag and drop service for the cloud. According to the MIT Technology Review, CloudSwitch provides an intermediary layer between the data center and the cloud.

It’s a service designed to simplify the process for moving to the cloud but it still comes with its complexities. CloudSwitch requires virtualization software to port the customer applications to a cloud environment.

With the virtualization software in place, the customer installs the CloudSwitch technology. CloudSwitch takes the data from the customer’s virtualized environment and places it on the cloud platform using a “cloud fitting” algorithm. The algorithm compares the two environments to determine how the application runs on the CloudSwitch platform.

CloudSwitch should thrive in this world, where the complexity for moving applications can make it seem not worth the trouble to make the switch.

This is a huge market opportunity. It’s not exactly a priority for cloud computing providers. Cloud computing services would prefer that a customer move its data to the cloud and keep it there. If it’s as easy to move data to the cloud, it should mean that CloudSwitch can provide a service that allows for the application to move out of the cloud, too.

We find it troublesome that vendor lock is emerging as an issue in cloud computing. It’s why we need more standards based initiatives like what is proposed by the Open Cloud Consortium.

Discuss

Portland has a fast emerging tech culture that is seeing a number of new technology startups.

Today, $225,000 is on the table for one of the year’s biggest events: The Oregon Entrepreneur Network’s annual Angel Oregon.

One of the major contenders is ActiveTrak, which tracks lost or stolen devices. The company is launching a SaaS service in the next three months for the enterprise.

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You may know the company for its consumer service: GadgetTrak. The software is installed on laptops or mobile devices. It uses WiFi to track the device. For mobile devices, the service may use GPS. If that’s not available, it will triangulate using WiFi hotspots or cell towers. The software will also take a picture of the person who stole it.

The software has been used to track stolen computers that has helped break up criminal rings. Recently, Portland schools had a number of laptops stolen that had the software installed.The software tracked the devices, leading to arrests and recovery of the laptops.

CEO Ken Westin said the enterprise service will be available as SaaS or on-premise offering. One of its pilot accounts is with a major chemical company.

People will install the software on the device, which syncs with the application in the cloud. Mobile devices will allow for over the air updates such as with iPhone or Android applications.

Security is obviously a priority. ActiveTrak will store its databases on dedicated servers. The application layer will reside in the cloud. The on-premise service will reside entirely As demand increases, it will increase or decrease its number of application servers as demand peaks and ebbs.

Westin said they are trying to avoid issues with propagating data across a number of servers. Data, in Westin’s view, is easier to secure in one place.

Discuss

The news that Google is buying DocVerse is now official.

The reasons why Google bought this small company can be learned by taking a look at the people who started this small company out of Seattle.

Shan Sinha and Alex DeNeui worked at Microsoft before launching DocVerse in 2007.
Sinha ran product strategy for Sharepoint and SQL, 1.6B and $3.0B products, respectively. DeNeui served as program manager on the SQL Server Strategy Team and the program manager for the WinFS ISV Team.

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The two have built a strong company that will help Google in its battle with Microsoft. Sinha and DeNeui know Microsoft products. They know the Microsoft processes and its culture.

DocVerse understands the challenges of working on deeply collaborative technologies. That’s a goal for Google as it continues to develop Google Apps. The DocVerse application installs a lightweight plug-in that is installed in the background of the user’s machine.

The plug-in opens a widget in the document sidebar that includes a unique link. Any time a user makes an update to a Microsoft docment, the plug-in syncs the web page that is associated with the document. Every modification gets synced. When multiple people work on a document, the updates are made through the plug-in and versions are stored online.

Syncing will become increasingly important for companies as more of the workforce uses smartphones. Google does a good job with email synchronization. But enterprise collaboration tools have a higher level of complexity. Co-editing, for instance, has to carry from the PC to the mobile device among mulitple users.

Interestingly, Jive Software uses the DocVerse functionality for their product add-on: Jive Connects for Microsoft Office.

The competition is getting fierce in the enterprise space. We wonder how this competition will affect the DocVerse relationship with Jive.

Discuss

What a week for StatusNet, the open-source, microblogging service that serves as the foundation for identi.ca, one of the first services to emerge as a focal player in the movement around the real-time Web.

Last week, the company launched StatusNet Enterprise Network, a microblogging service with a support program for the corporate market. Initial customers include Motorola Corporation and Canonical Ltd.

And yesterday, they announced a significant update that demonstrates they will be an open-source alternative to the proprietary microblogging services that cater to the enterprise.

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StatusNet is an exception in the enterprise market. It’s an open-source software project, started by members of the open source and wiki communities.

The enterprise service is priced on an annual basis. It ranges in cost from $1,000 to $10,000 per year. Customers get access to different levels of service based on package they choose to purchase. For example, at the $1,000 level package, the service includes access to the forums. It includes email support and response time within one day. A $10,000 package includes six hours of best practice consulting and response within one hour to support requests.

Open-source software is proving to be a winner in the enterprise. As we noted earlier this week, a number of enterprise providers have committed developer communities. Alfresco Software is a shining example. According to Matt Asay, the company has grown every quarter since its launch in 2005, “with its last quarter seeing a 30-percent quarter-over-quarter increase on an already large base.”

With a committed developer community, an open-source enterprise provider can show significant improvements in its product. Today, StatusNet released StatusNet 0.9.0, the latest version of its software, representing eight month of development by the StatusNet developer community.

The feature list scrolls down the page. It includes leading edge support for OStatus, the new distributed status update standard based on PubSubHubbub, Salmon, Webfinger, and Activity Streams.

Significant: StatusNet now has no fixed content size. “Notice size is configurable, from 1 to unlimited number of characters. Default is still 140!” This could possibly mean that the service can be similar to Tumblr or Posterous that fits into the enterprise.

Other updates include:

• Support for location using the Geolocation API.
• Support for OAuth authentication in the Twitter API.
• An authentication plugin for LDAP servers.
• Support for Facebook Connect

We expect that StatusNet Enterprise will rise fast as a contender in the enterprise market. It’s extensible, has the features that the enterprise customer wants and it has a strong developer community. That’s a winning combination that makes StatuNet a potential open-source star in the enterprise.

Discuss

Steve Ballmer gave a live webcast today and said that Microsoft is betting its future on the cloud. He illustrated that by saying 70% of Microsoft’s 40,000 employees are working on cloud related efforts. By next year, 90% of Microsoft employees will be working on cloud matters.

Ballmer spoke at the Allen Center on the University of Washington campus. He outlined five ways Microsoft is embracing cloud computing.

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These are broad, almost vague views on the market. But they do give some guidance to Microsoft’s direction:

• The cloud creates opportunities and responsibilities.
• The cloud learns and helps you learn, decide and take action.
• The cloud enhances your social and professional interactions.
• The cloud wants smarter devices.
• The cloud drives server advances that drive the cloud.

The discussion had its most interesting points in the last 30 minutes of the presentation when the talk turned to Microsoft’s emphasis on software; maps and photos; Xbox and Windows Phone 7 Series.

At one point, Ballmer said that all software will eventually be in the cloud. Is Microsoft taking risks? This statement would seem to show that perhaps the political base at Microsoft is shifting just a bit from the desktop.

The maps, photos and Xbox demonstrations were captivating, showing the semantics of space in a cloud environment and how maps synthesize into 3D images.

With Xbox, we were reminded of the Windows Phone 7 interface, with the use of what looks like hubs that are presented as tiles. In the demo, each tile represented a different live TV show that people can watch with their friends in a virtual, animated environment.

The Cloud Wants Smart Devices: Not much in this except demonstrating Ballmer’s belief in the “Internet of Things,” where the cloud helps connect devices to undestand gestures, bringing together voice, touch, speech, all in one.

It’s the future of the smart device that appears to have had had such an influence on Windows Phone 7 Series. He pointed to the mistakes Microsoft made with Windows Mobile. It was too focused on voice. The future of Windows is in the cloud. That goes for the Windows operating system and Windows Phone 7 Series.

A lot of people will say Microsoft is not in the game anymore. That notion can’t be supported when you see Microsoft discussing realistic, intelligent views about the market and backing it with how the cloud applies to its products and services.

Still, Microsoft is as guilty as anyone for hyping the cloud and further obfuscating what is meant by cloud computing.

Really, Steve. Did you actually say “cloud in a box?”

Discuss

Juniper Research has come out with more analysis that shows just how big the mobile enterprise market will be for cloud computing.

According to Juniper, the advent of collaboration tools will mean that 130 million enterprise workers will use the mobile cloud by 2014.

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The steep climb will be in part due to the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings from companies like Google and Microsoft.

The rise is already evident as more people adopt smartphones. In particular, Juniper points to the iPhone and the App store as catalysts for the growth. People are using their iPhones to use a variety of applications for the work they do.The report also cites the iPhone user interface and how it has spurred adoption and lead to a higher level of quality in smartphones across the wider market.

The report also cites how cloud computing providers have opened up their API’s, which in turn has attracted waves of developers. The benefits to developer and customers are cited as reasons why we will see the surge. Developers can easily deploy applications to the cloud. And the greater variety of offerings drives a higher customer base.

In February, Juniper predicted that mobile cloud computing will grow to $9.5 billion by 2014.

Discuss

Socialtext is one of the smarter companies we cover in the enterprise space. The people there have an intellectual bent. Co-Founder Ross Mayfield is a thought leader and one of the original pioneers of the social Web. He’s one of the thought leaders. And the CEO, Eugene Lee, is one of the more eloquent people we run across in the interviews we do.

Socialtext came into the market in 2002, long before blogs bloomed and years ahead of what we know of as the real-time web.

As a result, they have an established client base. They were one of the first, if not the very first, to offer wiki technology as an enterprise product.

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Today, they announced a new version of its software: Socialtext 4.0. It’s a far cry from its original technology. This is the era of the real-time web. And Socialtext has had to adapt.

Socialtext has done a pretty decent job of keeping up with the pace, which seems to be quickening in the Enterprise 2.0 space. Most noteworthy is its new group capabilities. It’s like a threaded, real-time stream. Groups can be organized so there are main group hubs with additional groups that come out of it. Group can be public or private. We are seeing this kind of approach more often from companies like Yammer, Socialcast and Jive Software.

It just makes sense. A real-time stream is useless if it is one river of news. You need to channel the real-time flow so you can see its context. It’s why people use desktop products like Tweetdeck to follow Twitter. By setting up channels, you can follow specific communities and keep in context the real-time stream flowing by you at any one moment. In the enterprise, the needs are different. You need more capabilities so groups can interact and people can move quickly between conversations.

Mayfield takes it a step further. He says Socialtext is making it ridiculously easy to add groups. Of course he has a vested interest in promoting Socialtext. But true to his roots, he traces the concept back to the early days of the social Web, providing context for where we are today:

“Back around the time in which social software was defined and when we started enterprise social software, Seb Paquet introduced the notion of Ridiculously Easy Group-Forming.

Weblogs have a potential for group-forming like no other medium. However I’m convinced that much of it to this day remains untapped. I’d like to explain an idea that I have been bouncing around for a while. It might well be a reformulation of what others have said previously. I believe that implementing this properly would give a nice boost to the blogosphere’s social aggregation capability.

Basically the goal is to push the threshold for group creation to an unprecedented low. I think Reed’s Law should be refined to state:

The value of a group-forming network increases exponentially with the number of people in the network, and in inverse proportion to the effort required to start a group.”

That’s a context for anyone to consider in the enterprise space these days.

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Drupal’s founder is calling for open source in the enterprise and in the cloud. This should be no surprise, coming from someone like Dries Buytaert. But it is still interesting, considering the source and the point he makes about the actual lack of open source in cloud computing.

Drupal is one of the most popular, open source content management systems. Buytaert created it initially as a messaging board. It went open-source in 2001.

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Dries, who is now the co-founder of Acquia, says the SaaS model need to be updated, modeled on open source values. He points out that SaaS companies for the most part are built on proprietary software.

Dries:

“….they might allow you to export your data, but they usually don’t allow you to export their underlying code. While a lot of these services might be built on Open Source components, they have a lot more in common with proprietary software vendors than Open Source projects or companies.”

It’s in Dries view that this model can be disrupted by open source. For example, he says, the Drupal Gardens community improves the overall platform by contributing to it. The goal, as Dries says, is for people to export their Drupal Garden site in their entirety ” the code, the theme and data — and move the platform to any Drupal hosting environment.”

His example points to a huge issue with cloud computing. It’s not easy to export data from cloud computing services. Third-party services offer methods for exporting the data but for the most part, cloud computing services are proprietary. No open standards exist for passing data.

As Vint Cerf said in January to the Commonwealth Club: It’s like 1973 for moving data around in the cloud. IBM, Google and Amazon have no way to interoperate. There are no cloud standards.

Open-source communities are faring well in the enterprise space. Matt Asay of the Open Road posted a story last week that illustrates the success of oepn-source enterprise efforts.

In particular, he referred to some of the most successful companies: Alfresco Software, Sugar CRM, Jaspersoft and Zimbra. Here are the numbers he presented:

Open-source communities thrive in all sorts of places, even the enterprise space. The next step is to bring this same community drive into the cloud community. Our bet is it will happen sooner than we think.

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The RSA Conference is the event for news to spill over with talk about cloud computing security.

Let’s take a look at some of the announcements from the major players in the market, including Intel, Novell and Cisco.

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Intel, RSA, VMware and the Trusted Server

According to Dark Reading, the companies demonstrated a proof-of-concept for “building security into the cloud computing infrastructure.”

The companies are playing on the white listing concept, which has gained wider acceptance in the security world. The idea being that if a server is trusted or white listed then it will be far less vulnerable to malware attacks:

“At the heart of the PoC is a hardware “root of trust,” which uses Intel’s Trusted Execution Technology (TXT), which authenticates each step in the boot process of a system, verifying the hardware configuration, initializing the BIOS, and launching the hypervisor. It basically ensures physical and virtual environments aren’t tampered via malware or other malicious activity. Intel’s upcoming “Westmere” processor, which will be announced in two weeks, will support this capability, says Kirk Skaugen, vice president of the architecture group and general manager of the data center group at Intel.”

Novell and the Cloud Security Alliance

Novell is teaming up with the Cloud Security Alliance to push standards for cloud computing. The effort is called the “Trusted Cloud Intiiative.” According to Information Week, Novel will develop standards for cloud security, compliance, identity management and other related issues.

Cloud computing is essentially a world with no standards whatsoever. Everyone has different meanings for the fundamental aspects that are a part of cloud computing. That leaves the customer with little way to fully understand what they are committing to with a cloud vendor.

In its second year, The Cloud Security Alliance consists of technology companies seeking to develop use cases about the processes and practices around cloud computing security.

Cisco: Developing Mobile Phone Security

Cisco is developing an “always on” security system for mobile devices. According to Computerworld, the service would give enterprise managers the ability to control cloud-based applications on an employee’s mobile device.

ComputerWorld:

The service…”would allow a business to establish an always-on VPN connection that would “automatically log you in” and “maintain session state.”This new VPN client on the mobile smartphone and other types of computers would be the means to also establish policy controls to set restrictions on Web browsing, prevent unauthorized transmissions of sensitive data through data-loss prevention filtering, and provide automated access to cloud-based applications, as well as a way to de-provision use of applications, if needed.”

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Socialcast is launching a brand new activity stream, an Outlook plugin, an on-premise offering and a private cloud environment. The offerings represents a new effort by enterprise vendors to reach deeper into the enterprise and integrate more fully with email systems.

It also represents the reality that many large companies want a service that is not entirely in the cloud.

Socialcast originally developed a real-time service that provided a sophisticated service for building teams, collaborating and analysis.

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Socialcast calls the new real-time activity stream “Enterprise Activity Stream Engine,” or EASE. With it, they’ve created a new logo, a new image for the company, that looks a bit more modern and perhaps a little more formal, too. EASE is designed to serve as a layer within the enterprise that allows anyone to post real-time updates, create communities and see updates to the updates that people make to applications within the enterprise. This means that the real-time updates can filter deep into sales, marketing, operations and other parts of the corporation.

A New Social Layer

A social layer is settling over enterprise applications that cuts across CRM environments, ERP systems and the software that touches warehouse workers and other people in the field whose job it is to deliver the products into the marketplace.

It’s this transformation that companies like Socialcast see as the greatest opportunity to reach into the heart of the enterprise.

In the new enterprise, the real-time web will be the glue that binds different services. But it will not be entirely SaaS based. We hear this from the larger companies in the market. Socialcast is targeting companies with more than 100,000 employees, which means they will compete with a service like IBM’s Lotus software. IBM is focused on offering SaaS and on premise offerings. IBM has a large installed-based so it make sense they would focus attention on its on-premise applications.

Companies like IBM also know that they need to offer a SaaS environment. This is what makes the Socialcast news noteworthy. It puts its product into a category that makes what they offer more palatable to the largest companies in the market.

Further, Socialcast is offering a private cloud environment that can be deployed behind the firewall as a rapid-install virtual appliance, leveraging VMware, Hyper-V, or other server virtualization platforms.

The Outlook plug-in is also demonstrative of an approach that will help Socialcast compete. Employees will be able to view the real-time stream in the same window as their email.

E-mail is getting some attention, huh? Microsoft is offering more collaboration with Outlook and GMail is now home to Buzz, which will soon be an enterprise offering in Google Apps.

We are entering the next phase of enterprise collaboration. The drive is to serve the entire enterprise. To do that, expect more companies to offer hybrid approaches to appease the concerns about moving entirely to the cloud.

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