IT Retrospectives

Rackspace Open Sources Cloud Platform; Announces Plans to Collaborate with NASA and Other Industry Leaders on OpenStack Project

OpenStack Open Source Cloud Computing Software

San Antonio, TX - July 19, 2010 - Rackspace® Hosting (NYSE:RAX) today announced the launch of OpenStack™, an open-source cloud platform designed to foster the emergence of technology standards and cloud interoperability. Rackspace, the leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry, is donating the code that powers its Cloud Files and Cloud Servers public-cloud offerings to the OpenStack project. The project will also incorporate technology that powers the NASA Nebula Cloud Platform. Rackspace and NASA plan to actively collaborate on joint technology development and leverage the efforts of open-source software developers worldwide.

Google's Android takes No 2 spot from iPhone | Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc displaced iPhone maker Apple Inc to become the second most popular provider of smartphone software in the

Image via CrunchBase

United States during the first quarter, the latest sign of the increasing competition in the fast-growing mobile market.

via www.reuters.com

The Data Deluge

The Data Deluge | VizWorld.com

"Everywhere you look, the quantity of information in the world is soaring. According to one estimate, mankind created 150 exabytes (billion gigabytes) of data in 2005. This year, it will create 1,200 exabytes. Merely keeping up with this flood, and storing the bits that might be useful, is difficult enough. Analysing it, to spot patterns and extract useful information, is harder still."

Building iGoogle Gadgets

I recently started dabbling with building iGoogle "gadgets". If you aren't familiar with iGoogle, it's a service from Google that allows users to create a highly personalized web-based portal with various pieces of news, weather, content, and a slew of other types of web-based applications in one handy location.  It's the first place I go each morning to view my local news, check the weather, monitor stock prices or even kill time playing silly online games during the long train ride to work.

The most intriguing thing about iGoogle is that they provide an open API that allows just about anyone with a basic knowledge of HTML and JavaScript to create some really useful applications. In a matter of days I was able to create a fairly robust market data quote display that works well on both a standard desktop web-browser and equally as well on an iPhone (screen shot is from iGoogle running on my iPhone web browser).

If you're a serious application developer, iGoogle provides a robust platform on which you can build some pretty sophisticated web-based applications.  With an estimated user-base of 25 million users, it's also represents an intriguing business opportunity.

Interested in my iGoogle gadget? Click here.

Technology Review: An Operating System for the Cloud

They believed it would help make personal computing less expensive, because Google would give away the software free of charge. They wanted to shrug off 20 years of accumulated software history (what the information technology industry calls the "legacy") by building an OS and browser from scratch. Finally, they hoped the combined technology would be an alternative to Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer, providing a new

Image via Wikipedia

platform for developers to write Web applications and unleashing the creativity of programmers for the benefit of the masses.

via www.technologyreview.com

Google clearly has the clout and money to pull this off but can they build something compelling enough to get millions of users to switch to a new OS? I would certainly be willing to explore a new operating system developed by Google but I'm also unwilling to give up the familiarity of Microsoft Office and the other day-to-day tools I use to do my job. Yes, there will be substitutes for most of those products but the fact is that they will probably be pale in comparison. A good example is OpenOffice -- a great office automation package but, I'm sorry, it's a long ways away from Microsoft Office.
So, Google has a pretty tall order in front of them and they'd better be in it for the long haul if they have any hope of success.