IBM, Microsoft and Google

Operation Golden Phoenix

By G C Network | July 22, 2008

This week, Dataline is participating in Operation Golden Phoenix. Operation Golden Phoenix is a four-day multi-agency collaborative training event designed to assist federal, state and local agencies with large and…

DISA Reaches out to Industry on Cloud Computing

By G C Network | July 21, 2008

In an interview with Computerworld , published in the New York Times, John Garing expanded on his goals for the DISA cloud computing initiative. Garing said that, “… he and…

Cloud Computing is $160B Market

By G C Network | July 18, 2008

According to the Financial Post, a Merrill Lynch Note estimates that cloud computing could be a $160B market by 2011. The companies that they see in the marketplace are shown…

SOA-R Educational Series: What is Cloud Computing

By G C Network | July 18, 2008

On July 16th, SOA-R held it’s first of six educational sessions on cloud computing for national security missions. Presenters during this first event were: Steven L Armentrout, PhDPresident & CEOParabon…

Gartner: Cloud Computing Fraught with Security Risks

By G C Network | July 17, 2008

Cloud computing is fraught with security risks, according to analyst firm Gartner. Smart customers will ask tough questions, and consider getting a security assessment from a neutral third party before…

The Definition of “Net-centric”

By G C Network | July 16, 2008

Last week, the Google Cloud Computing Group debated the definition of net-centric. The key thought was that net-centric was nothing more than internet-centric or basically “online” and therefore it really…

Cloud Computing Journal Launched

By G C Network | July 15, 2008

“The world’s first journal devoted to the delivery of massively scalable IT resources as a service using Internet technologies has been launched by SYS-CON Media. The all-new “Cloud Computing Journal”…

SOA-R First Session Presentations Announced

By G C Network | July 14, 2008

The presentations for the first session of the SOA-R Educational Series sesion have just been announced: Steven L Armentrout, PhDPresident & CEOParabon Grids, Clouds and Computation: Getting to Ground Truth…

Cloud Storage as a Service

By G C Network | July 14, 2008

In SAN vs cloud storage – a gray or silver lining? , Joseph Hunkins review last December’s observations of cloud storage by Chris Mellor of Techworld: “Google does not use…

Google: Model for the Systems Architecture of the Future

By G C Network | July 14, 2008

In December of 2005, Prof. Paul A. Strassmann of George Mason University, provided an excellent outline for cloud computing success in a netcentric environment: Network-Centric Requirements (2010)• Downtime ( 1…

On October 6th, IBM launched their cloud services initiative. This is a:


 “[C]ompany-wide initiative that extends its traditional software delivery model toward a mix of on-premise and cloud computing applications with new software, services and technical resources for clients and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). IBM’s new cloud services can help businesses of all sizes more easily adopt cloud computing models to better manage data, lower operational costs and make collaboration easier.”

Since IBM has partnered on cloud computing with Google, this commentary on Microsoft by Michael Vizard may be telling:

“Just about everything that Microsoft does and says about cloud computing comes across as fairly reactionary. Essentially, Microsoft has let Google set the tone for much of the last two years and every service that it rolls out is compared and contrasted to something Google already did….”

” …Unfortunately, it looks like Microsoft is pretty much asleep at the wheel when it comes to cloud computing in the channel. Of course, one of these days Google is going to wake up to the same opportunity. And before Microsoft realizes, a large swath of the channel might find common cause with Google simply because it might actually be trying to make an effort.”


But Google has issues as well. From the same commentary:

 

“Right now, it doesn’t look like Google even knows how to spell the word channel. But that’s not likely to stay the case forever. In the meantime, Microsoft is pretty much ignoring a coalition of the willing at its own peril.”


Microsoft clearly has a chance to leverage it’s dominance in the application space by helping it’s partners port millions of applications to the cloud using the Microsoft Cloud OS. But will they move before Google wakes up and smells the channel?  


When is comes to channels, IBM also knows a few things so this will indeed be interesting.

Follow me at https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson

G C Network

1 Comments

  1. Benjamin on October 16, 2008 at 9:57 am

    You don’t wake up and smell the channel, you spend half a decade trying to build it – that’s why 3Com was so strong in the networking space, and also how Cisco managed to wash their face (after a few early struggles in the channel). There is a world between being a consumer oriented media company, and being a IT channel organization. There again, maybe IBM is Google’s channel?