I attended the GigaOm Mobilize conference (where VMware was well represented
by CTO Steve Herrod) and came away with a few observations that are relevant
for our overall mobile strategy:
The web is the new app store. I had dinner with the heads of mobile for two
large retail chains. Although each of them have multiple App Store apps, the
vast majority of their mobile business is coming through the safari browser
and not the app store. Consumer behavior is to go to the web to buy things,
even on mobile. There are only two mobile markets, native iPhone and mobile
web.The shift to HTML5 (+Phone gap if necessary) is happening rapidly. Almost
every speaker talked of the html5/jquery/phonegap stack with a few native
iPhone holdouts (e.g., gaming, iPhone only apps like Hipmonk). Phone gap
allows html5 apps to access native smartphone features and be packaged for
native app... (more)
Chris Keene's "Keene View" Blog
Ben Worthen of the Wall Street Journal recently posted an entry about Web 2.0
adoption. He cited a Forrester survey that concluded Enterprise Web 2.0
solutions would gain broad adoption in 2008 despite clear CIO resistance to
the siren call of blogs and wikis.
As a strong proponent of Web 2.0 in the enterprise, we at WaveMaker want very
much to see a rapid adoption of these technologies at the corporate level. On
the other hand, wishing won't make it so - the grab-bag of technologies and
ideas that constitute Web 2.0 are bound to confuse the IT commu... (more)
Chris Keene's "Keene View" Blog
For cloud computing to take off, there need to be tools available that enable
a developer to build and deploy an application without having to download
anything to their desktop. This requires an on-demand development tool that
sits on top of the cloud and provides a development Platform as a Service
(PaaS).
There are two paths that a vendor can take to create a development platform
for cloud computing: cloud-first or tool-first.
Cloud-first approach to PaaS: first build a cloud platform, then build a
development tool that runs on top of it. This is... (more)
Chris Keene's "Keene View" Blog
Cloud computing is custom made for Silicon Valley - it is poorly defined,
seemingly vast and has the potential to change human life as we know it (at
least for those of us who live in Silicon Valley). Since so many people are
jumping on the cloud bandwagon, I thought it would be useful to look not at
what cloud computing is but at what cloud computing isn't.
.
Of course, we have our fair share of naysayers (like Larry and Richard), as
well as theories about why those naysayers are down on cloud computing.
Cloud computing is the hardware equivalent of a... (more)
With all the hullabaloo about cloud computing, it is easy to get caught up in
the trend of the day and miss the big picture. The big picture is that cloud
computing disrupts the data center world by slashing the capital and skills
required to deploy a web application.
If that is the big prize, then most of what passes for news in cloud
computing is more along the lines of "me speak cloud too."
Today, cloud development and deployment is still the exclusive domain of
highly paid web experts and just as highly paid hosting providers and systems
administrators. As much as cloud provide... (more)