Still in his ‘rapid-talking’ mode, Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer rampage the blogosphere with yet another new teaser while attending the Microsoft-sponsored developer conference in London yesterday.’Cloud computing’, as you may know it already (if not, then please read my previous post) is not only set the newest trend in using computer; but also set a new category in computer hardware known lately as ‘netbook’. With all of these trends are beginning to take off and about to move in fast pace, Microsoft sees a new opportunity in the tighten OS competition; especially against Google the pioneer of ‘cloud computing’ services we’re all too familiar today. Steve Ballmer started the teaser by telling the delegates with these lines:
"Every time there's a big new trend, a big new opportunity, we write a new operating system. We need a new operating system designed for the cloud and we will introduce one in about four weeks, we’ll even have a name to give you by then. But let’s just call it for the purposes of today ‘Windows Cloud’,” said Ballmer. Microsoft plans let loose the 'Windows Cloud', at the company’s annual developer conference later this month.
Looks like Steve Ballmer isn’t just talk, but we can see his seriousness when he knows what ‘cloud computing’ is all about: virtual service. "It's too hard today for people to write cloud applications, ... You should just be able to write an application and, if you will, push it to the cloud, and have the service taken care of," Steve Ballmer admitted.
This leads to a new business model of subscription-based applications, generally known as 'software as a service' (SaaS) but dubbed by Microsoft as 'software plus services'.
And just like the ‘energetic’ Microsoft’s CEO we know, Steve Ballmer didn’t forget to talk about his company number one rival; Google. “If you talk to Google they’ll say it's thin client computing but then they’ll issue a new browser that’s basically a big fat operating system designed to compete with Windows but running on top of it,” he said.
When asked about how Microsoft is going to implement the ‘new business model’ (read: Windows Cloud) for end users, I’m able to see right through his glass and perspire Microsoft’s true intention:
"Some things will be sold, some things will be put out on a subscription basis, some things will be monetized through advertising. We need to make sure there's a model and a platform that supports all of that," said Steve Ballmer.
I don’t need to tell you bluntly what that’s suppose to mean, but you can guess it if you’ve read Steve Ballmer’s own revelation of Microsoft’s real motivation (tip: it’s got something to do with money ;-p).
Alrighty, we’ve done covering what Steve Ballmer has to say about ‘cloud computing’. Then let’s hear what the other contestant on the other side of the ring has to say, the open source community, represented by Richard Stallman:
"It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign," he said. "Somebody is saying this is inevitable--and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true."Ouch, that’s what I would categorized as blunt. ~LOL~ For open source community and “hankering” Linux die-hard fanboys, Richard Stallman is no stranger. In fact he often idolized as the father of free software movement. The founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the GNU operating system, says: "Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenseless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software."
Richard Stallman has a very good insight there, and he brilliantly pointed out what could’ve be one of the trickiest type of web business campaign. And although he maybe right, I don’t think the web users around the world is gonna stop using Google’s ‘cloud computing’ services (ex: Gmail, Docs, etc.). Or, would you?
Sources are from:
[blogged with my Treo 750v]
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