Nice analysis Larry. Rumours include Google is getting into the electronic transaction gateway business, ala PayPal (IPN/Payments Pro), and into the ecommerce hosting business, again ala PayPal. Focus on small biz/SOHO accounts. Basic web and mail hosting services fit right into this paradigm. (I haven't heard anything in regards to plans for the "online auction" space but I don't see why not). So the question is on database and application services along with API support. Will Google hosting customers be able to run Zen Cart with MySQL or will customers be restricted to proprietary Google provided GUI, apps, and API's? I see AJAX technology implemented in future Google interface development projects and see Google's own version of .NET on the horizon. So will Google try to out MSN, MSN?
darren ----- Original Message ----- From: "larry price" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Eugene Unix and Gnu/Linux User Group" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 2:22 PM Subject: Re: [Eug-lug] google hosted email service It's pretty clear that they are going to move into commoditiy webhosting as well as commodity mailhosting, and as far as i'm concerned that can only be a good thing. What I'm curious about is are they going to make a play for the applications market? Google is one of the few groups that has the technical skills and the resources to bring a hosted applications grid style thing to market. Consider the following scenario, you have built a neat little web application that people like and that is at least moderately profitable in it's first incarnation (it brings in barely more than it costs to run); then it becomes insanely popular. Now you have problems, and most likely you'll end up selling out in one form or another to afford to do the things that you will need to do to scale the app to meet demand. Not to mention growing pains, and if you navigate through the maze you end up having to build multiple redundant data centers, your own backhaul network, etc,etc,etc. How could Google (or anyone else) help you with this? Warning: here is where we get seriously speculative The strong option: Google lets you host a full operating system image on their grid, instances are created on a prefork basis to anticipate demand, the programming environment is similar to what you get on a single instance on raw hardware, with a few exceptions, like logging, and your database setup might be constrained. The not nearly as strong option: Google lets you host an 'application image' on their grid, you have to use their programming model, and the learning curve is steep, instances are created on a per request or per session basis. Call it the .NET version The weak option: Your application exists as a configuration of standard components, the programming model is deliberately limited and pitched towards the nonprofessional, call it the Myspace version. There is already an outfit http://www.ning.com/ doing something somewhere between the second two options. And I had hopes that Sun would be offering something like the strong option (i think Sun has sucked too much NSF and DOD teat to take public facing apps seriously any more; and their grid offering is compute oriented rather than service oriented). Any how, that's my brain dump, back to work. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- _______________________________________________ EUGLUG mailing list [email protected] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug _______________________________________________ EUGLUG mailing list [email protected] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
