Wednesday, August 26. 2009

Let's Budget for Cloud Computing

In today's Directions Magazine, you may be seen the partial results of a poll in which we are asking our readers to "define" cloud computing. Of the 125 respondents so far, 19% said they don't know what it is. They would be in good company. It seems that even IT managers are having difficulty with a definition but it is not stopping them from budgeting for and a procuring cloud services.

According to a report in InformationWeek, 66% of 250 IT managers interviewed by telephone said they are budgeting for cloud computing and that their budgets are likely to grow over the next two years.

According to the report:

• 82% of the respondents said they are "in some stage of trial, implementation or use of public clouds"
• 83% said the same for use of private clouds
• 75% said they see platform as a service (PaaS), such as when Salesforce.com offers database services and tools for customizing its applications or building new ones, as a form of cloud computing
• 60% said they see infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) or Amazon's EC2 as cloud computing

And, as we have surmised previously, the report also said that, "The main driver toward cloud computing is the efficiency that stems from using public clouds instead of further building out the IT infrastructure internally, according to 77% of respondents."

UPDATE: I came across this report on CIO.com entitle "Cloud Computing: What is its potential value to your company?" It was sponsored by Google and gives you some basic, "back of the envelope" idea of cost savings.

BBC Using Google Gears to Deliver Location-based Content

For now the content is weather and spots from it Breathing Places efforts (about natural places) but the effort will grow to provide more options as part of BBC Learning Innovations. A demo under the working title BBC Open Air is a website one can visit from a desktop or mobile device. With Gears installed it will know your location and offer up appropriate content.

- BBC via Paid Content

Google Crowdsources Traffic: Will that kill waze?

Lots of buzz in the last day or so about Google using data from those using Google Maps Mobile to compile and share traffic data - especially for rural routes. (See for example Ars Technica.) It's been around in some areas for a while.

Several comments I saw said basically, "Waze is dead, Google killed it." Hang on - recall the Waze business plan while it includes sharing traffic data is about developing a base map from its users' travels, then selling that geodata. I don't know if it will work, but it's a very different money making proposition than say...Google's.

iPhone May Support LBS But Apple Needs Some Geography Marketing Insight

I love my Mac and my two iPods. I'm even ok with the e-mails about new products - like the new OS coming out on Friday.

Today I also got an e-mail about a new Apple Store opening at Liberty Place. I figured it must be around Boston because Apple knows I live around Boston. But I'd not heard of Liberty Place. It sounds fancy - like Copley Place in Boston. Maybe there's a new "Place" in Boston and I'm just not paying attention? Or, maybe there's an error and it's not in Boston? The announcement includes no address (street, city, state) so I had to click through on either the "Apple Story, Liberty Place" link or the "Get Directions" link. I learned the store is in Dedham, MA about 20 miles south of Boston. Oh, ok.

It gets funnier. The "Get Directions" link uses Google Maps, but not so well!