Gawkwire: Web Hosting and Internet News Resource

Cloud and IBM/Ciscoâ€™s Extensive Manifesto

2009-03-31T10:07:00-04:00

(WebHost Blog) What I find funny is the Open Cloud Manifesto was not really open. It didn’t really start open and its not really open to the major cloud players at the moment either. Instead it basically says open platform or else, which hasn’t really made folks like Amazon or Microsoft want to join in.

Its not a bad document it has a lot of areas where I think everyone can agree, but IBM is no slouch when it comes to this sort of thing and the message is definitely hand crafted for ultimate affect. And as I read it over and over again I can only conclude that that message was meant as a slap to those already in the cloud computing space.

Maybe I am wrong in thinking this but this seems more to me like posturing then actually trying to devise something for the cloud space.

There are already several companies who have penetrated the cloud market and with a few exceptions, the big ones are missing.

Although IBM says that this is only meant to start a discussion and a discourse I am wondering if it will. Surely companies thinking of starting cloud offerings and the smaller players will look into it, but will it actually foster change or just be one of many action groups that falls by the wayside?

The tenants of the manifesto are laudable but in the end, I think this will just fade away after many meetings and several action committees present various findings it will move to the background as other companies present their own cloud solutions.

And then the cycle will start again.

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/cloud_and_ibm_cisco_s_extensive_manifesto.html

Firefox fix due next week after attack is published

2009-03-28T06:00:00-04:00

The attack code, written by security researcher Guido Landi, was published on several security sites Wednesday, sending Firefox developers scrambling to patch the flaw. Until it is patched, this code could be modified by attackers and used to sneak unauthorized software onto a Firefox user's machine. ... Go to source http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/firefox_fix_due_next_week_after_attack_is_published.html

Serious Lack of Common Sense

2009-03-24T10:11:00-04:00

(WebHostBlog.com) The charge is of course the fact that Microsoft bundles Internet Explorer with Windows. And by doing so is considered an antitrust act….

What are they teaching people in business school? An operating system is a sum of parts. It has things such as a place to write on, a calculator, some sort of file manager,… you get the point. With how important the Internet has become, it would make sense that an operating system, designed for all users, would have a web browser (Mac OS X has a browser, heck RedHat Desktop has one).

There is no market

Ballmer: Do not try to monopolize the market; that’s impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth.

EU: What truth?

Ballmer: There is no browser market.

So its an established piece of the operating system. Now lets talk about the browser “market.”

Every major browser that has been made in recent history is free: Safari, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, etc. A market is defined as a system in which goods and services are bought and sold. Well every product in this “market” is free so there is no buying or selling and therefore the browser market doesn’t even exist in the first place and therefore any monopoly or antitrust laws are null.

If You Can’t Beat Them, Claim Incompetence

But let’s get away from semantics. We will assume that it is a market, Mozilla makes quite a lot of money from users who search Google via Firefox, so why not, its a market.

Going back to an OS being a sum of parts. A car is another product that is a sum of parts as is a computer. If I opened a business that sold car seats for Hondas could I not then sue Honda for selling car seats in their cars, which gives them an unfair advantage in the Honda car seat market? Or better yet. You go to an auto parts store you will see shifter knobs, steering wheels, and floor mats. Should all of these manufacturers sue the auto industry for antitrust?

Of course they wouldn’t. They understand business. They know that they must market their products and give reasons for buying their products even though its a cost that is above and beyond that of what a car costs. Internet browser software is free, and can take less than a minute to download and install. Essentially it is a no-risk product. Which means a browser software company merely needs to come up with the slightest of reasons for a consumer to user their browser.

So if we go this route of logic, Mozilla, Google, et al, are aiding the EU in this lawsuit against Microsoft because browser makers are incompetent in understanding market forces. That doesn’t seem fair either, if you detect weakness in your opponent, you pounce. So perhaps the European Commission is incompetent.

The Truth

Firefox owns almost 22% market share, Microsoft owns around 67%, Safari owns 8%, and the rest of the browsers (some 20 or 30 of them) own 3%.

In less than two years, IE has dropped market share by 11.5%, Firefox has gained 6.5%, and Safari has gained 3.5%. In other words, Internet Explorer dropped 15% in less than two years. Another market has seen its number one product drop by 15%… it took 10 years… Coke if you wanted to know specifics.

15% market in 23 months is proof positive that Microsoft Windows isn’t really shielding IE from any browser.

As a side note, only 9% of all Macs use Firefox. Perhaps they should be forced to remove Safari from their operating system. http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/serious_lack_of_common_sense.html

The Art of War: Join, or Die!

2009-03-19T09:41:00-04:00

(WebHost Blog) In order to be successful, the smaller groups would have to unite. This ideal helped fuel the birth of the United States, join together and fight as one or die separately.

This concept is not new, even back then. T’ai Kung in the Six Secret Teachings and Sun Tzu in the Art of War both describe how numerical advantages, when used properly, can destroy opponents centuries earlier. We can see this is a practical business sense as companies like Google continue to eat up their competition. Buying out companies and adding their software and technologies to further the power of Google.

I guess the next question is so what? Well let’s now switch gears.

As the weeks go by, in fact, we are seeing large companies moving into the Web Hosting arena. Though this has happened many times in the past, and has failed main times in the past, companies like Google and Amazon are making serious attempts to grab at the Budget Hosting, Online Storage, and SMB Hosting markets. Will they succeed where others have failed? Hard to say. Though each has already made good gains and the current economic climate increases the likelihood of success, they might yet be fought back by Web Hosts who focus on providing a quality service.

What sort of elements make up a successful Web Host?
When we think about the complete package for a Web Host we often think of things like hardware (data center, servers, network), software (interoperability of the OS, software service packages, etc), support (customer, billing, technical), domain name (many of the complete package Hosts provide domain name registration), and perhaps extras such as Web site design and marketing.

So let’s take these elements and move them around a bit:

Data Center
Servers
OS
Software features
Customer support
Billing support
Technical support
Domain Name
Web site design
Web site marketing

In each of these categories, you have two choices, make your own or purchase it from another vendor. It would be absolutely ludicrous to manufacture your own servers for your company as it is also equally insane to program your own operating system when several already exist and have software that is compatible.

Certain companies specialize in providing certain products, certain services. Among these companies are those who provide the best products and services. Why would you want to build your own servers, operating systems, shopping carts, email collaboration suites, automated billing software, control panels, etc, when you can purchase one?

Taking this further, why purchase products, services, etc from other companies when you can form partnerships and alliances that can reduce costs, increase support, and increase opportunities for marketing ventures? Making partnerships with other companies augments your strengths and improves weak areas. As an added benefit, it makes it possible for you to focus on your business and not on the ancillary details.

In an economy where businesses are looking to reduce costs and to weather the storm of possible buyouts and hostile takeovers now should be the time to seriously consider the words of Ben Franklin, “we should hang together for we will most assuradly hang separately.”

Until next time happy hosting!

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/the_art_of_war_join_or_die.html

16 ways IT can do less with less

2009-03-17T09:30:00-04:00

But perhaps a better solution would be to do less with less -- to scale back on over-allocated services, curtail unnecessary capital expenditures, and clean house of legacy apps and orphaned software. This may be your opportunity to show the organization how it can save money using open source software, virtualization, cloud computing, or SaaS. ... Go to source http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/16_ways_it_can_do_less_with_less.html

Big players back Cisco's data center plans

2009-03-13T09:47:00-04:00

Sources say these companies will be on the roster of partners Cisco is lining up for its strategy, which is also expected to include the introduction of the company's 'California' blade servers. Blade server stalwarts IBM and HP are - or were - longtime partners of Cisco's in data centre applications, but California is expected to strain those relationships and keep those companies off Cisco's partner list this time around.

IBM is uniting with Juniper for Project Stratus; and HP is expected to tightly link its blade server and ProCurve networking operations for next-generation data centre opportunities. ... Go to source

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/big_players_back_cisco_s_data_center_plans.html

Internet and Attention Spans

2009-03-12T09:39:00-04:00

I’ve been told that I should skim in order to condense my work day, but the reason why I read and not skim is that when someone asks me what do I think about the sudden drops of service in several major cloud offerings and what it means for the future of cloud hosting, I can offer a well thought reply.

Last summer in the Atlantic, Nicholas Carr wrote an article called “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” It is quite an interesting read. Essentially it comes down to what we read also affects how we read it.

He talked about how the constant scanning of articles and when he is drawing a blank on something instead of trying to remember it, he simply Googles it allowing his memory “muscles” to atrophy.

In an interview, Sergey Brin said, “if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” Which is why Brin and Page along with the rest of Google is working on creating AI.

My question is this, as I bounce from subject to subject (something I have always done anyway) with my new artificial brain, will I get stopped by Adwords?

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/internet_and_attention_spans.html

Customer Satisfaction for E-Commerce Decline

2009-03-10T00:42:00-04:00

From 2007 to 2008 the total satisfaction dropped by 2% to a grand total of 80% for average e-commerce vendors. Researchers believe this drop has little to do with overall satisfaction and more to do with economic conditions making customers less tolerant of small problems.

Among online stores, eBay dropped the largest (a drop of 4%) to an all time low of 78 points. Researchers attribute these drops to the increase in competition and the challenge these companies are bringing to bare on eBay. Amazon also dropped in satisfaction by one point.

Not all retailers dropped in satisfaction. Newegg and Netflix both increased their satisfaction scores by one point from 2007.

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/customer_satisfaction_for_e-commerce_sites_decline.html

Enterprises will self-host Windows Azure someday

2009-03-09T00:31:00-04:00

Future versions of Windows Server will enable companies to efficiently manage and provide virtualized applications through the Web just like Microsoft's upcoming platform-as-a-service, Windows Azure, a company executive said this week.

"The innovation in Azure and future versions of Windows Server will be shared, and that code base will continue to cross-pollinate," said Steven Martin, senior director for developer platform product management at Microsoft, in an interview. "The corporate datacenter at some point in time will look like a mini-cloud, partitioned by application workload." ... Go to source

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/microsoft_enterprises_will_self-host_windows_azure_someday.html

Virtualization Can Bulletproof Disaster Recovery Plans

2009-03-05T09:29:00-05:00

When it comes to disasters, companies have two choices: Be prepared, or be prepared to fail. Unfortunately, disasters are not a matter of if. They're a matter of when. Many people think of major disasters that hit the national news, but there are other types of events that can result in a Total Building Loss (TBL) disaster such as fires, floods, tornadoes and robberies. According to a study by McGladrey and Pullen, every year, one out of 500 data centers will experience a severe disaster. That same study reveals that a full 43 percent of companies who experience a significant disaster never re-open, and 29 percent close within two years. Unless companies have a solid disaster recovery (DR) plan, they are at risk.

Over the past several years, virtualization has emerged as an easy and reliable way to improve disaster preparedness. This technology provides companies the ability to dramatically increase the efficiency and availability of their resources in the event of a disaster. Using virtualization, enterprises can ensure they are back online within minutes or hours, rather than days, weeks or months. ... Go to source

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/virtualization_can_bulletproof_disaster_recovery_plans.html

Google CEO: Search Market Still Unsettled

2009-03-04T00:30:00-05:00

Google has become all but synonymous with searching on the Web, but this is no time to sit still.

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley technology conference, Google CEO Eric Schmidt described today's search market as a very fluid industry, and reiterated his enthusiasm for the opportunities lying ahead in mobile computing.

"It looks like people will move very quickly from one search engine to another," Schmidt said. "A majority of people actually say they use more than one search engine, and of course Microsoft is working very hard to build a competitive search engine," he added, noting the recent leak detailing plans about Microsoft's next steps in the market. ... Go to source

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/google_ceo_search_market_still_unsettled.html