David Mitchell Smith
VP & Gartner Fellow
16 years at Gartner
30 years IT industry
David Mitchell Smith is a vice president and Gartner Fellow in Gartner Research, where he specializes in the impact of catalytic technologies such as the Internet, Web 2.0, cloud computing and consumer technologies. Read Full Bio
by David M. Smith | September 20, 2010 | Comments Off
Oracle Open World opened yesterday with a keynote that included CEO Larry Ellison talking about its cloud strategy. It wasn’t very long ago that Larry was quoted saying some not so nice things about the term cloud. So what’s happened? Has he changed his mind? Details are sparse and will likely be expanded upon later in the week so this post will be fairly sparse as well.
Some have interpreted this as Oracle getting into the cloud. But is this a 180 degree change of strategy? No, not really. So far it looks more like a 360 to me. The full spin, so to speak, all the way around back to where it was before.
Not that Oracle isn’t building some good stuff or that people will not find it useful. The point is that other than some continuation on the same path (enabling, not providing cloud services, focus on private over public cloud)), the strategy is the same.
Before yesterday, if you ask Oracle what their cloud strategy was the answer would be essentially ‘you can build clouds with our stuff’. Now it’s still the same. But more stuff.
But now it’s cloud. Poof.
Category: Uncategorized Tags:
by David M. Smith | September 15, 2010 | Comments Off
There has been much talk of Google by way of its partnership with Verizon vis a vis Net Neutrality. Many opinions describe it as Google going against its long standing “don’t be evil’” mantra. No comment here on that topic.
However, Google has indeed backed the concept of net neutrality for a long time. It is not for altruistic reasons, but rather because the more people use the Web, the more they view Google ads, which is where 97% of the company’s revenue comes from. It has viewed the status quo of a very open Internet as a good thing for its core business and it drives much of the company’s strategies.
To that end, Google has employed tactics that are best described as “Head fakes”. These have included bidding for wireless spectrum with the goal not to actually own it but to open up the terms and conditions. With Android, it launched the Nexus One phone with the goal to erode wireless carrier influence, not to actually be a manufacturer of wireless devices. Ironically, with the failure of the Nexus One strategy and the overall thus far success of Android, the influence of wireless carriers has increased. Not exactly what they had intended.
So now, Google and Verizon. What’s really going on here? Yes, Google is close to Verizon as a result Android. And that is likely at least a factor. However, the re is more than meets the eye here as US regulators don’t seem to be interested in decisively acting on net neutrality. So is Google doing another ‘Head Fake” by attempting to drive them into acting by partnering with Verizon? Or have they resigned themselves to the reality of carrier power and figured that “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ;’em”?
Either way, works out well for Google. Doesn’t make them evil. Maybe not quite brilliant. but definitely pragmatic.
Category: Uncategorized Tags:
by David M. Smith | September 10, 2010 | 3 Comments
News broke overnight about Microsoft Office executive Stephen Elop moving to Nokia as CEO. This by itself is shocking news, but what other shocking aftershocks might follow?
I’m no Nokia expert. All I know is that my first mobile phone was from Nokia back in the 90s but that nothing they’ve made recently has been compelling enough for me to seriously consider it. Many have given up on Nokia, especially in the US where most of the smartphone action has been.
Microsoft, I’m much more familiar with. Had one of the very first Windows Mobile phones before they even called them by that name. For a while, they were competitive, but as time went on, others, notably Apple and Google left them in the dust. Many have given up on Microsoft in mobile. But Windows Phone 7 is about to launch. And I’m not ready to write it off.
The market has spoken and said it likes the idea of alternative, more open offerings than those from Apple. It also still likes Apple, but a lot of the Android success is due to offering more choices than Apple does (carriers, form factors, etc.). But with that openness comes tradeoffs. Ironically closedness due to increased carrier power. A bit of fragmentation. Things that Microsoft has learned the hard way through a decade of Windows Mobile mistakes. Google is learning them now. So, timing for Microsoft with a hopefully ‘just right’ balance between control and open, could be very good.
Elop, in his short time at Microsoft, was involved in deals that put Office and Silverlight on Nokia phones. There’s been a lot of ‘advice’ given to Nokia that has suggested they drop everything and go Android. Here’s my radical thought: Nokia will go Windows Phone 7.
Many have written each off. However, together they have a much better chance.
Category: Uncategorized Tags:
by David M. Smith | September 2, 2010 | 2 Comments
Disclaimer: I’m ranting about the term PaaS, not the concept.
We just published the 2010 Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing and is it a surprise that the most hyped term (other than cloud computing itself), is PaaS? This is in part due to legitimate excitement about some of the offerings and possibilities. However there is a huge amount of confusion generated by this term. There are many problems with this term and the absurd discussions that come about keep getting more absurd all the time.
I can’t even count how many conversations I’ve had over the past year or so explaining why hosting something like Websphere or Oracle on Amazon is not PaaS. (A good rule of thumb is if you need a traditional software license it’s not a service.) You have some software being hosted on some cloud infrastructure service (IaaS).
I’ve been meaning to write this for a while. Many of you who talk to me have probably heard it a few times already. A couple of recent discussions have prompted me to finally do it. First, Red Hat’s “PaaS” announcement which is not a PaaS but enabling technology that can be used to build one. But what really put me over the edge was a conversation about another vendor’s offering of "PaaS as a Product". To me this is as absurd as General Motors, who builds cars that can be used as taxis (and could be called ‘car as a service’ (or CaaS)) referring to
their cars as "CaaS as a car" or "CaaS as a product". Pretty absurd isn’t it? That’s just the beginning of the absurdity that the PaaS term leads to.
It comes down to use of two words, both of which by themselves are often sources of confusion (and in the cloud world, we thrive on confusion, but this is too much). The words are Platform and Service, which of course are the P and the S.
First, lets look at “service”. Most of the offerings from companies like Redhat and VMware are cloud enabling products, not services. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…We even have a term for it at Gartner – Cloud Enabled Application Platforms (CEAP). They can be used by service providers and even internal data centers to provide a "PaaS". But they themselves are not services. (Side comment, I’ve yet to see true "PaaS" or SaaS internally but that’s a rant for the future…)
Next lets look at “platform”. Nobody could say it better than one of my favorites, Dilbert: .
It’s true that everything can be a platform, and that it can be an incredibly confusing term, especially when used unqualified like in PaaS. However it can also be a very helpful term and concept when viewed as a relative term. The example I often give is platform as the "you are here" marker in IT architecture. Like when you enter a city you are unfamiliar with, you look for a map with some indicator of where you are. Without it you have little hope of getting to your destination. Similarly in IT, the term platform can be used that way to help clarify, not confuse. As there can be many kinds of platforms (eg, hardware, browser, OS, database, app server,…), qualifying it is imperative to use if to help, not confuse.
Platform refers to an extensible entity, something that is built upon. It resides on top of infrastructure and below applications (also relative terms). At Gartner, we have referred to all of the levels (not just "PaaS") as types of web/cloud platforms. After all, don’t many of us also refer to Amazon as an IaaS platform when we are talking about building on top of it? What if what we
are building a "PaaS" on top of it? What would we call that? a PaaS Platform? Here we go getting absurd again.
Best to my recollection, the term PaaS can be credited to (blamed on?) Salesforce.com. Their entry, force.com, is indeed delivered as a service so it’s really not their fault. However, as cloud terminology evolved and we had IaaS and SaaS, using PaaS as a general term seems to be what happened. And NIST adopted it and everybody uses the term. Even us, although I do it kicking and screaming.
A better term to describe what most people mean when they say PaaS is "middleware in the cloud". This doesn’t use the term platform as ambiguously and it makes no claims that anything is delivered as a service at that level. And when you want to actually mean services, we call it "Cloud Application Infrastructure services"
I’m not betting that the term PaaS will disappear (Certainly the concepts won’t as they are critical.) It’s too entrenched. But in the confusing world of cloud computing, is the term helping or hurting? I say it’s hurting.
Category: Uncategorized Tags:
by David M. Smith | June 30, 2010 | Comments Off
I am one again amazed at the buzz (sic) generated by the prospect of Google once again entering the social networking space. Originally the rumor was attributed to Kevin Rose of Digg (the link appears to be dead now, but it was picked up other places like here.
But, isn’t Google a ‘web 2.0’ poster child company? If so, how can it continue to have to enter the social networking space (which means they haven’t yet succeeded), yet the conventional wisdom is that they are a successful web 2.0 company? This same conventional wisdom equates web 2.0 with its most visible component, social networking.
A similar thing happens in cloud computing. Once again, Google is often considered a cloud computing poster child. However, if you also look at the way that the same conventional wisdom views the cloud as these limited buckets of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, then Google ends up not being a player in any of those spaces, if you look at revenue (97+% of Google’s revenue is derived from search and advertising, which is not in those –aaS categories).
So, how can Google be considered leaders in web 2.0 and cloud computing given these oversimplifications? Just askin’
Category: Uncategorized Tags:
by David M. Smith | May 19, 2010 | 1 Comment
I spent today at the Google I/O developer conference. Fun Fact: Google claims it stands for Innovation and Open. Day one (unfortunately only able to attend one day) had two main themes: one was about the web, the other about the cloud. Big implications for both.
The Web, including HTML5, video and a web app store:
- Lots of demos of HTML5 web app capabilities including Darkroom, clicker.com (and their new 10 foot UI clicker.tv) and a really slick sports magazine by Sports Illustrated that looks like it was made for an Ipad. Drag and drop into Gmail, and of course lots of video. The goal was to demonstrate how rich HTML5 apps can be. Very rich indeed.
- WebM as a new web media initiative (my assumption about the M) was announced and its main component is the VP8 codec. As was widely speculated, Google did make VP8 available as open source. As there are issues regarding IP regarding other codecs, VP8 is a good fit for HTML5 video. Mozilla and Opera were on stage to support it. Not coincidentally, Microsoft announced support for it today as well. We’ll see what Apple will do.
- Adobe was also on stage showing new features of Dreamweaver that make developing HTML5 easier especially on different form factor screens. In addition, they announced that VP8 will be built into the Flash player and hinted that we’ll see more Flash stuff tomorrow. I have been expecting to see Google and Adobe get much closer so tomorrow could be very interesting. Flash represents a way for Google to transition from native mobile apps (eg Android) to the eventual pure web that they envision.
- The Chrome web store was also announced. This is the sleeper announcement. Missing from the web has been a way for people to find apps and for developers to distribute them and monetize them. Google is looking beyond advertising monetization models and for now is focusing this on html5 web apps for Chrome and ChromeOs, free and paid apps. Today it is not focused on mobile, but IMHO just a matter of time. And will be one of the keys to adoption and acceptance of mobile web apps as a viable option, not just native web apps.
The other main theme was “Bringing the cloud to the enterprise”.
- First, VMware CEO Paul Maritz talked about Cloud portability and the role that Java, specifically the Spring framework, can play here. Through technologies that VMware acquired from Springsource, it has begun to drive Spring as a viable way to develop Java apps for the cloud. It spans not only the new version of Google App Engine (for business) but also its recently announced VMForce joint venture with Salesforce.com, as well as private clouds running Vsphere and other public clouds running Vcloud. VMware is posed to fill the void in enterprise cloud leadership. While there are certainly cloud leaders in general (e.g., Google, Amazon), there are no natural enterprise leaders. Microsoft is trying, but it is early.
- GAE for business was also announced as an enterprise focused offering that takes GAE and adds the spring framework support along with management tools, SLAs, SSL, a SQL database, and revised pricing. The pricing model derives more from Google Apps (SaaS-style subscription vs. IaaS-style ‘pay as you go’ which is how GAE (non-business) is priced. It is interesting that this pricing model was talked about, whereas for VMForce, it was not finalized. I view this as an indicator that the SaaS subscription model will be more popular for “PaaS” style offerings such as GAE.
Clearly big news on both fronts. More to come. Oh and more tomorrow but I’ll have to get it second hand.
Category: Uncategorized Tags:
by David M. Smith | March 17, 2010 | 2 Comments
As expected, MIX10 was home to a lot of excitement. lots of cool stuff. Front and center was the grand unveiling of the developer story for
Windows 7 phone. As outlined in my post about the earlier announcement I was looking for certain things at Mix and I said I would revisit after Mix. So what better way than to grade them on what i was looking for? Here goes:
1. Focus on the Web:
Grade: I have to split it into two.
For mobile, Grade: C: It’s a decent mobile browser, similar to that in the Zune HD, based on what has been described as "IE7.5". Nowhere near as bad as what they’ve had on windows mobile, nowhere near as good as IE9 looks to be, and falls significantly short of Safari on the iphone. Caveat: I have not been able to actually use the windows phone browser yet, only see it live. Without a strong web browser, they will be at a disadvantage as leading edge html5 web apps become more than a curiosity. I believe that 5 years from now, the mobile web (browser apps) will be a major force, accounting for half of mobile apps. That doesn’t mean that native apps won’t matter. They absolutely will. but less than today. And those with strong web browsers will be better positioned than those without it. Microsoft is clearly years behind Apple (and even Android) in the apps race. They are also behind them in the web apps race. They would have been better positioned if they were ahead in something.
For Windows desktop, Grade A-: IE9 looks to be a good step forward and a strong endorsement of HTML5. Much stronger than I had expected just a few months ago. The one area of HTML5 that they were silent on is the offline capability. While the nuances of offline are many, much of HTML5 is not straightforward, and discussion of the topic and public commitment to the offline capabilities would have made this stronger.
2. The role of Silverlight. Grade: A-. Tremendous potential here and some really cool stuff especially for developers. The tools are great and free. Features like deep zoom are awesome. only held back by the browser issue (the wp7 browser does not render SL content. That’s right. So all the SL sites on the web (like the Olympics and other sports sites) cannot be experienced by wp7. What’s up with that? Also as the SL story is POTENTIALLY cross platform, today it is for all intents and purposes, a Windows Phone 7 only environment. However it also remains a potential great bridge between native and web apps. But not today. A really solid native dev story though. clearly an A there.
3. The desktop play. Grade: B. The story here is primarily around hardware accelerated HTML5 via IE9. Which is not a bad thing, but has yet to be proven and also has yet to be a proven differentiator. it also
makes for some interesting discussions around how and when other browsers on windows may be able to do this as well. There was a good buzz around SL in general, including SL desktop apps but not a lot of discussion of windows desktop apps especially Microsoft’s consumer offerings such as media center, and windows live. I expect to hear more on the live front shortly. Media center? I’m not holding my breath…
4. And last but not least, content. Grade: Incomplete but Promising. They clearly have time to do this and I’d expect anything here to be launched with actual product later in the year. In hindsight I can say that it was unrealistic for me to expect that for a developer conference. But the possibilities are there. I see the potential largely for two reasons: the experience with the Zunepass subscription strategy and the fact that Microsoft does seem to have content providers’ interests in mind more than do Apple and Google. Keep watching this space.
I was left with one final thought. The world could have been so different had Microsoft done this with the portable media center and added phone to it the way Apple did.It’s amazing how a platform company had such a non-platform strategy in mobile and media until now. It’s good to see platform thinking arrive. A little more web thinking and some aggressive actions in the right places and Microsoft could be a real force to be reckoned with.
What was your impression? Did Microsoft do what they needed to do?
Category: Uncategorized Tags:
by David M. Smith | February 16, 2010 | 3 Comments
Microsoft’s long awaited announcement of its mobile strategy at the Mobile World Congress this week did not disappoint. There is no shortage of commentary on it but i will reserve my opinion until I see what is announced at MIX10 in a couple of weeks. MIX is one of Microsoft’s development conferences, focused on web and customer experience scenarios. Many of the unanswered questions about Windows Phone 7 will be addressed at MIX. But I do have some observations and expectations:
The biggest positive sign that i saw is that Microsoft is thus far not copying apple. It is making use of the UI from the Zune, which is itself related to and an evolution of Media Center (its PC media hidden jewel) and the Portable Media Center (a long defunct early media player effort the company had before the Zune). The PMC was ahead of its time, delivering video back when Steve Jobs was saying nobody would ever want video on an iPod. Obviously the company did not execute well. The UI of these devices, still recognizable in today’s Zune HD, is excellent.
It also is not following Apple’s model to build and control everything. Rumors of a phone codenamed "Pink" still abound but if and when we see it, I expect it to be a one-off thing, not the main strategy. Microsoft, like Google, will rely on OEMs. However it will try to instill just enough control to avoid fragmentation, without the tight stranglehold of Apple. It worked in PCs and while the mobile world is not exactly the same, there are similarities. (After all, mobile aficionados often touting the devices as handheld computers…) The biggest difference though is the existence of Google and there is no doubt it will be aggressive with the web. Can Microsoft be the ‘just right’ in between too closed and too open?
The other positive sign is the beginning of integration of the capabilities of the device with the company’s other consumer media offerings including the very successful Xbox live and the not as successful but interesting Zune subscription model. further integration with windows live id, office web apps and other cloud services is also likely. so instead of a ‘Zune phone’, they will have Zune, Xbox, etc. on Windows phones.That’s a good thing.
So at MIX, i will be looking for the following, besides the obvious question about what the developer story is for WP7.
- How much focus on the web. How good is the browser, How much will it support leading edge capabilities in HTML5? What version
of IE will it be based on? In a world today focused on native mobile apps, it would be easy to ignore the browser but that would
be very shortsighted as 5 years from now, i expect to see the majority of mobile "apps" be web apps, not native. Not that
native won’t matter, but it won’t be the obsession it is today. Native apps matter a lot in mobile today, but will matter less in the future.
- The role of Silverlight. Most expect that Silverlight will be part of the development story. But there are many different ways in
how this could happen. SL can run in the browser or it could be the basis for a complete set of APIs that are separate from
what can run in the browser, or it could be a very well designed compatible offering that could span both. If Microsoft chooses to
go with a native app dominated strategy without a strong browser and SL/browser story, they will be competing against Apple where Apple is coming from many years’ head start and a strong browser story (You may remember that Apple started the iphone with a web only development strategy that is still a part of the offering although eclipsed by app-mania now). SL could be a great bridge between native and web and even a cross platform play, if done right.
- The desktop play. It’s no secret that Microsoft has been challenged to demonstrate compelling desktop capabilities as the web becomes more and more powerful. The few examples of elegant and powerful apps on the desktop such as the Zune software and media center have potential to become much more than they are today.
- and last but not least, content. Thus far the company has let Apple be the leader in cutting groundbreaking deals with content providers. If Microsoft is serious here, an aggressive content strategy, possibly upending DRM as we know it, would be something very interesting.
I’m not saying that i expect all these things, just that i am looking for them.
What will you be looking for at MIX to fill out the mobile strategy?
Category: Uncategorized Tags:
by David M. Smith | February 12, 2010 | 9 Comments
I expect that Google was hoping and thinking that Buzz would be a turning point in their social networking success. (On a side note, isn’t it amazing that Google, a “posterchild” company for web 2.0, a concept
which is often associated with social networking, has not yet been successful in it… )
Back to the main issue around a turning point. I’ve long thought that privacy is a potential disaster landmine for Google that could massively change perception of the company should a privacy disaster occur. (Think Toyota and quality…)
The backlash against Google’s poorly thought out rollout of Buzz is staggering. The best example is this NSFW (language and graphic, so don’t click on it if you are at work or easily offended) post. It’s vitriolic but reasonable.
You have to wonder what kind of beta testing Google did with Buzz before rolling it out to everyone virtually overnight. Also interesting is that Buzz is not even labeled beta. From a company that kept Gmail in beta for over 5 years?? Maybe they should have read a post by my colleague Daryl Plummer on Google Stop. 
.
The real turning point may well be in how Google and Facebook are perceived. I for one have always looked at these two companies as being very different. While I knew Google was collecting all kinds of information and using it in ways that made them money, I. perhaps naively, like most Google users, thought they would use some reasonable precautions. As for Facebook on the other hand, I never thought that. I assumed that anything I did on Facebook could be broadcasted to the world whether i wanted it to or not. Did Google not see what backlash Facebook went through over similar kinds of issues?After Buzz, I think Google may have hit that turning point. I for one will think of them more like Facebook than of the Google before Buzz.
What do you think? is this a turning point for Google?
Category: Uncategorized Tags:
by David M. Smith | November 18, 2009 | Comments Off
After I just posted my previous entry titled Silverlight Steals the Show! I realized i had also buried the XRM non-news. So I was guilty of burying it almost as much as Microsoft is. So below is the last paragraph from the post, highlighting the non-news. Don’t get too non-excited about the non-news…
XRM is the underlying platform technology underneath Dynamics CRM Online. It is analogous to force.com’s origin underneath the Salesforce.com app. Other than a brief mention of it as something that can work with Sharepoint and one session at the very bitter end of the conference, XRM was missing in action. It is one of the more silent but promising pieces of Microsoft’s cloud technology. XRM is Microsoft’s only fully multitenant application platform as a service technology that runs on and off premises). I waited until the end of the day 2 keynote to write this to make sure but for now it looks like it will continue to remain as such for a while longer.
Category: Uncategorized Tags:
