Dear CEO's: Be Careful with that Cloud PR Stuff

Jimmy Bergmark posted an interesting item on Google Plus about some quotes from Autodesk CEO Carl Bass regarding the future of Cloud services.  The quotes were posted on Ralph Grabowski's World CAD Access web site...

"There are a lot of applications that will [still] be done on the desktop. Whether Autodesk does it or not, I can't think of a single function that won't necessarily be done in the cloud." - Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk

As Jimmy commented...

Asked whether there was some resistance by Autodesk users to make the move as fast as the company is making the switch he said that people are already living in the cloud with their personal applications and that there are somewhat different issues for them.

"Foremost in people's mind is security, privacy, reliability, confidential information. Some of those concerns will fall by the wayside."

Here's the rub I have with folks like Carl (not with Jimmy, he's a genius):  When it comes to Public Relations (aka "PR") these guys are making a HUUUUUUUUUUGE mistake and it is already having a detrimental impact on their business.  Let me itemize, if I may...

1. Understand the difference between a PUBLIC Cloud and a PRIVATE Cloud!
   
   I'm not going to spoon-feed you here.  That's what Google and Bing are for.  But, when the CEO doesn't understand how f***ing important this distinction really is, how can anyone beneath them fully grasp the importance of it as well?
   
2. Be prepared to explain that difference to your customers
   
   Every single time a CEO/CIO/CTO/CxO opens their mouth and says with a smile "We're going to the cloud!  Come along with us!" it scares the living shit out of their customers.  Why?  Because they translate that directly into the following:
   
   A. The products are moving into a Public Cloud platform
   B. Customer data is going to move into someone else's sandbox
   C. Customers will lose at some control (possibly even intellectual property rights) over their content
   D. More points of failure will be inserted between the Cloud point and the customer point
   E. The more points inserted in the middle, the more likely potentially interrupting business operations
   
   Rather than saying "Cloud", make damned sure you elaborate on what your vision and execution plans are for both Cloud types.  Reassure your skiddish customers that they will have an option to retain all the control over their operations and content that they currently have, while having the additional (potential) benefit of leveraging the Public Cloud for (possible) cost savings.
   
3. Make SURE your products are fully-aligned with both Cloud platforms
   
   A lot of products are being shoe-horned and relabeled to become "Cloud" products/services.  IT administrators and power users can smell that a mile away.  Don't assume your customers are idiots, that's a dangerous place to go.  This is especially true for larger customers (enterprise-level corporate shops, the kind that tend to buy subscription pricing contracts to leverage volume discounts).
   
   If you (Mr./Ms. CEO) are sincere about pursuing Cloud services, on both Public and Private environments, break out your cattle prod and put the fear of God into your chain of command to insure they design, and execute, a strategy that natively works in a real Cloud environment on both environments (public and private).
   
   If you really don't intend to support Private clouds, don't fake it.  But also be prepared for a tougher hill to climb when it comes to winning over big-shop customers.

I'm sure all the CEO's of the world read my blog and will take this to heart.  So by the time you've read this, all will be corrected and working fine.

P.S.  Follow Jimmy Bergmark at JTB World.  Follow Ralph Grabowski at UpFront eZine, and World CAD Access

The Cloud

I was asked by several folks what I thought about "the cloud" and what it means for the future of IT, business, culture, society, and so on.  One reader (Randy, thank you!) asked if I would take a minute to write something on it.  I've been poking at this subject with a stick like a three year old curiously prodding a jelly fish washed ashore.

First: Caveats and Disclaimers:  I don't work with cloud technologies.  I don't have any clients that use what I would call "significant" cloud services.

The closest thing to cloud services I've used is Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Picasa, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and Blogger.  Some of these only remotely qualify as a "cloud" service, while others fit the bill pretty well (Gmail and Google Docs, for example).

But what is it?

Wikipedia (everybody's authoritative source, right?  heh heh) defines it as "Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like electricity"

That's better, but it still doesn't make it crystal clear to a lot of people.  This is like many IT terms which those working inside the club have an inate, yet unwritten understanding of.

To me, a cloud service is when you rely on something hosted over the Internet that you would have traditionally relied on from within your own facilities.  E-mail, document management, CRM, timekeeping, HRIS, accounting, finance, contracts, payroll services, benefits management, and so on.  The degree to which "relies" becomes involved is subjective.  Is it "cloud" oriented to share and mark-up engineering drawings within a collaborative web portal?  Or is it "cloud" when the engineering drawing application itself resides on an external web portal along with the drawings?  The answer is "yes".  It's a vague term, but it gets kicked around so much that many are left just nodding as if they get it, when secretly they don't feel very confident about it.  It's not a confident monicker.

But what is it good for?

That's up to you.  What is a truck good for?  To you it helps with shopping and carrying lawn care materials home.  To a business it means resource distribution and logistics management.  To a club it means carrying a team down a country road to meet for important events.  For a football team it carries the mascots and cheerleaders across the field at half-time.

It's a tool.  Just like computers, networks, software, and wires.  They're all tools.  What they are good for is a matter of what you need them for.

Some people may find cloud services of extremely powerful use to them.  Others may find it uninteresting.  Some may want to try it out and see where it fits into their overall needs.  Some will shy away from it citing regulatory or security concerns.  Whatever your view, at least look at some of the services out there and read up.  Learn what you can.  Then decide what you want to do with it.

I'm sorry if I seem non-committal, but I suppose I am.  Probably the mark of a consultant's world.  We always answer tough questions with "well, it depends".  That's a silly cliché, but it's really the most appropriate answer in most cases.  After 25 years working with computers I've learned to treat knee-jerk answers with caution.

Me personally, I don't have much use for Amazon S3, Microsoft's Azure, or SalesForce.com.  But that doesn't mean those may be of enormous importance and benefit to others.  That's why I say "it depends".

What's good?

Cloud services offload your infrastructure management overhead.  This includes facility space, utilities, logistics (scheduling the T-1 guy and the phone guy, etc.), hardware purchasing and provisioning, patch management, updates, support teams and call rotation schedules, heating and cooling impacts, backups and disaster recovery, and so on.  Those are some hefty reasons to consider it.  It's like saying: "Hey Microsoft, I can't really handle my own data center and server admins, so I'd like you to handle it for us"

What's bad?

There really is no outright "bad" here.  There are risks, that's a given.  Loss of Internet connectivity is probably the biggest concern for most businesses.  After that would be security, fault tolerance, disaster recovery response time, support responsiveness, flexibility, costs (real vs perceived) and so on.  But another recent risk that only emerged since the acquisition of Drop.io by Facebook is what happens when the service is acquired by a competing business or just goes out of business?  What garantees do you have?

Like I said: You have to educate yourself on not only what the general state of the art is, but what each player brings to the table, as well as what risks are incurred.  Then you need to carefully weigh those risks and compare the real costs, which can be tricky.  You will find that many of the aspects for cost comparison are the same as doing the business case for virtualizing servers and services.  Even if you have no plans to jump on the cloud services wagon, at least educate yourself and map out why you should or should not recommend it for your business.  The executive team will be most impressed that you took the initiative on your own (hey, a little job security never hurts).

TechnoFads: XML, Clouds, Snake Oil and Elvis

After reading about the cloud services hoo-hah lately, especially eminating from VMWorld and from the various press outlets following up on the Google Gmail outage, I thought about the 50,000 foot level view of this a bit.  This whole cloud thing is following the same hype-vs-reality curve that XML followed.  Indeed, many past buzzword frenzies have followed this curve.  AI, neural networks, 3D-everything, virtualization, universal authentication, and so on.

Remember when XML first started flowing out of the press years ago?  It was going to save the world.  Everything was going XML.  Even database engines and operating systems were going to be completely based upon, and built with XML.  Yeah, sure.  Yes, I know about XPath, so STFU please.  What happens with the hype curve is that there is an immediate latching-on to the craze and excitement, followed by a self-fueling frenzy to be the first to stake out new territory where the new wunderkind stuff will make a dent.  In most cases it doesn’t take hold, but the rush to get there first is where the frenzy comes from.

In the 1990’s it was all about “object-oriented”.  Everything was going to become and “object”, whether it liked it or not.  “Behold, you have become an object.  Shed your procedural ways, you heathen!”  This overzealous knee-jerking has two sides to it: good and bad. 

On the good: It fuels enthusiasm, which fuels interest and effort to rapidly explore and therefore mature the technology sooner.

On the bad: It gives non-techies reason to laugh, mock and scoff at the next great idea.  Knowing that it too will likely never pan out.

The good side always falls squarely within the tech/geek world, which makes sense.  But the latter side.  The bad side.  That rests mostly in the financialy, and marketing world.  Those are the folks holding the checkbooks, if you recall.  So every time the techies cry wolf about the next “great idea”, and it doesn’t ultimately pan out as originally promised, it simply tightens the grip on those checkbooks.  Your next funding request just became harder to push through.

It’s happening again with “cloud services”, especially cloud storage and BI services.

Remember, XML was going to do it all.  Be all things to everyone at all times for all reasons and needs.  Obviously, it wasn’t.  It was overhyped and everyone who had actually worked with it, knew it.  But we weren’t the ones with the microphone at the time.  The folks that saw Elvis at Burger King had the microphone and they ran with it, like crazed stoned-out hippies at a Woodstock mudfest.  “Get yer free shrooms!!!”  oh boy.

Sure, XML has finally found its niches and done rather well.  There are still some areas where it may not fit as well as initially thought, but overall, it’s doing pretty well and making sense where it’s being used.  But the idea that because something is “new” automatically makes it “better” is completely illogical. Just like humans.

So, back to “cloud services”… There are two basic needs for which it is being aimed at but only one really fits at this point.  The two are “online” and “offline”.  Nobody wants to admit that however.  Which is rather odd, to me at least.  It’s all being touted as “internal” vs “external” and “private cloud services”, blah blah blah.  I really wish marketing people would have to have worked in the related field for at least 5 years before they’re allowed to market it.  Just think how different the world would be if that were true.

It’s not Internal vs Exernal.  It’s Online vs Offline

“Online” refers to systems and services which are directly used by business operations.  “Offline” are those systems which are not directly used, but which reinforce or provide backup for the “online” systems.  Pretty simple, huh?

Some examples of “potential” online cloud processing would be things like SalesForce.com, Live Mesh and Google Docs.  But more than just data, there’s the application aspect to this.  Think of how something like running AutoCAD over the Internet might play out for an engineering firm with 50 users.  What happens when that “system” goes down?  I’m sure local caching failure techniques will be considered to help mitigate such events, but you have to come back to the “why?” question.  Why do it in the first place?

After repeated failures of cloud services like Yahoo, Google, Twitter, Facebook, and many others, nobody even bats an eye at the notion of moving their online business needs into the clouds.  Complete insanity!  Anyone that ignores those factors is putting a loaded gun up to their forehead while smiling and reassuring everyone around them that all is well.

Vendors love the idea.  They gain greater control over the applications (because they host them, duh), and the licensing (because you don’t get to install anything) and they don’t have to pay for auditing and compliance headaches.  Much better for them.  Much more risky for the customers however.

Just as XML found its way into common sense places, so to will cloud services.  One obvious niche being filled is in the area of data backup.  Think Mozy, Carbonite, Amazon S3, and so on.  Running your daily business processes directly from cloud services is just too risky.  Not just at “this point” in time, but anytime.  It’s just not a good idea from a reliability and risk standpoint.  However, using it to maintain offsite, offline backups of critical business data makes perfectly good sense.  Sure, cost will play a huge role in the decision process, but that points the gun at the CFO not the CTO, so be careful when that argument comes up.  Eventually, it will come up. 

Vendors like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, EMC, Cisco and IBM will push much harder to squeeze every hype-ridden drop of revenue out of their cloud service offerings by laying it on thick with your company’s golf-playing suit-wearing MBA folks.  And just like they do when getting off their air trip, they bring up some interesting article from the skymagazine about why they should replace their entire computing platform with a different one, they will get that Kool-Aid drink of cloud crap as well.

Cloud services make good sense for augmenting or outright replacing offline systems, but not for online systems.  At least not for medium-to-large (enterprise) customer environments.  For individual and small businesses it might work well enough to be practical.

One last thought:  What would happen if the ISP’s (Cox, ComCast, etc.) decided they were tired of being nothing more than a conduit and felt like jumping in to capture some of this market as well?  Some already are getting into remote backup and storage.  It could get interesting for other cloud services.  Let’s just hope the hype curve is normalized soon.

Microsoft Mobile Me?

Ok. I had to bust out laughing over this one. Paul Thurrott reports that Microsoft is readying a competitor to Apple's Mobile Me. Seems a little dumb to me. I suppose Microsoft will give this thing an appropriate Microsoft-style name, like: "Microsoft Personal Software Services Service 2009, Ultimate Premium Extras Edition"

Gmail Adds Quick-View for PDF Attachments

Yes indeed.  A small but very useful, and very helpful feature.  Now you can view PDF files from computers that don't have Acrobat Reader installed.  Yes, I know there are PDF viewing alternatives, but this little enhancement just removes one more thing you have to worry about.  Maybe they'll add the ability to view the contents of ZIP and RAR files someday?

Azure, Geneva, Velocity, with Fries and a Drink

Wow!  PDC events are always good sources of information explosion from Microsoft.  Unlike most other events like MMS, Windows and Office events, and so forth, PDC tends to focus on the meat and potatos.

Actually, PDC tends to drill down to the ingredients that make up the plates, forks, and the table itself.  I have never been lucky enough to attend a PDC event, nor MMS for that matter, but thankfully we have the Web and a Ba-zillion blogs and news releases to collect info from 400 billion directions at once.

Azure indeed looks interesting.  But from what I have read on dozens of blogs it seems it was the reason many former-Microsofties left for Google a few years back.  They wanted Ballmer and the gang to shift from client platforms to web platforms much sooner and felt Google "got it" when Microsoft didn't.  Now comes Microsoft, again.  It will be interesting to see how this strategy compares with what Google is doing and segment-focused technologies like Amazon's EC2 and Adobe Air.

I suppose that we'll soon see Oracle, IBM, Sun Microsystems and many others coming out with their "elastic spastic bombastic plastic fantastic" Cloud services.  I'm sure WebSphere and Eclipse for example will soon release news about their own IBM-centric cloud offering.  Sun will probably work to announce a Java-centric version and so on.  So instead of breaking down borders, we're simply moving them from our own servers to someone else's.   There are tons of ramifications for considering cloud services for business interests.  Privacy, security, integrity, accessibility, performance, availability, control and my favorite: comfort factor.  Larger businesses aren't going to jump into this anytime soon.  "Soon" for large enterprises usually means months, if not years.  SOHO customers are an obvious customer base.  Individual customers are another.  Like those that are considering Mozy or Carbonite services.  These are people that are also considering Google Docs and Office Live Workspaces.

In any case, it's nice to see Microsoft making a shift and doing something innovative again. Even if it's not creating a new market or technology, it's more of an evolutionary approach to what others have already begun.  That's alright, every invention draws from other inventions before it.  Ok, I knew you wouldn't buy that one.  Oh well.  At least they're trying on something new.  It's been a while since Microsoft has made a shift has major as this one.  I think that warrants some respect and attention, even if just to see what they do next.  It's better than watching them do the same thing indefinitely.