02.04.08
Pondering the Cloud
I’ve been reading and hearing an awful lot about “cloud computing” over the past few months - and I don’t think it’s going to stop any time soon. I think, to a certain degree, it’s the wave of what’s to come.
It’s sort of like the computing (r)evolution itself. No one really knows what’s going to happen - they all just wait until someone is making money - or comes up with something that really resonates with people’s pocketbooks - and all of a sudden “it’s the future.”
Think about centralized computers with “dumb” terminals, then personal computers, then VisiCalc and Excel (and office), then desktop publishing, then Mosaic, then the Internet, then Yahoo, then SalesForce.com, then iTunes, then Google, then AJAX, then SaaS (Software As A Service), then”offline computing”, and now “cloud computing.”
It seems like everyone is jumping on the modified SaaS bandwagon - not content in just offering up their services via the web (whether in native desktop clients or just via a browser) - but now they want folks to develop software on their platforms where they will do all the hosting as well.
This has some interesting impacts on how we do business. It will decrease the traditional IT costs - in the sense that no one has to babysit (or pay the cooling and utility bills for) a server room (or 5), and it means that developers can get applications up and running (at least simple ones) relatively quickly. Cloud computing could also benefit users who want to throw together an application and share it with others - without having to wait 3 years for an overworked IT staff to “get around to it.”
Sounds good - if it didn’t totally and completely suck.
I mean really, really suck. Maybe the technology just isn’t “there” yet. I don’t know about you - but I’ve tried a bunch of these online “cloud” development environments (CogHead, QuickBase, Rollbase, Yahoo Pipes etc.) and while there are good things to say about all of them - they are all very limited in what you can do - and really don’t even come close to the robust applications you can create “offline.”
Maybe I’m just too old - but I’m not really sure how much cool stuff you can create that:
- Isn’t being created and hosted for free by some .com 2.0 company
- Can match the look and feel of your other legacy applications
- Can interact with the hardware layer of PC’s (think cash drawer or bar code scanner)
- Can broadcast data to other connected users to avoid session dirty reads and writes
- Are very useful beyond what people do with spreadsheets (online or traditional Excel)
In fact, just beyond the surface issues they create data islands that don’t connect to your enterprise systems. You might as well just keep sending around your Excel spreadsheets (or TIP: use Google Docs!). Part of getting out of the stone age and the age of proprietary desktop database nonsense - is the notion that that you already have tons of data that you :
- Can’t easily get to
- Have to re-key into multiple systems
- Can’t visualize the way you need it to
- Is incomplete based on your business role
I have to believe that the answer isn’t a “cloud” version of a flat file, proprietary, closed database system that you can happen to easily create a GUI for.
Why can’t we have both?
We need a smarter GUI tool that will unlock the data we already have - and one that will allow us to deploy that GUI over a native client (for hardware integration) and/or over a browser for multiple access (bonus points if you can do it from the same code base - because who the hell wants to learn .NET??).
We need a tool that will allow us to combine our ERP databases with our frontline business applications - and allow easy reporting and slicing and dicing - AND is easy enough to use so that we’re not caught in “Excel Hell” (or “Google Docs Hell”).
Oh, and IT should LOVE it - not grudgingly support it.
There is a tool. It’s called Servoy. Check it out!
