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“Is IBM Commoditizing IT? Or Kicking Off the Next Round of IT Innovation?”
by Alex Fletcher
Newstex Web Blogs
November 20, 2007
This blog post discusses IBM’s recent announcement of its plans to offer a new platform called Blue Cloud. Blue Cloud is essentially an infrastructure that combines grid computing software, Xen and Power VM virtualized Linux operating system images and Hadoop, an open source software platform that links and facilitates the use of SaaS apps. The debate Fletcher is addressing in this post is whether infrastructure will continue to be important to the technology, and particularly the computer industry. It seems that the answer is yes. Most notably, “as the demand for Web 2.0 capabilities continues to explode over the next three to five years, companies across the globe will have to investigate if/how their current IT infrastructure will scale towards meeting that demand internally and externally.” In the world of Web 2.0 data storage, access, and the speed access are all very important themes. Creating a strong scalable infrastructure through cloud computing appears to be the direction we are heading as demand increases and industry must respond.
This post is relevant to understanding cloud computing because it poses many interesting questions about the purpose and importance of infrastructure in a digital world. As Web 2.0 expands and electronic data in created and needs to be stored, the best infrastructure will control how and where that information is stored, as well as who is able to access the information. Is what is happening today look like another important trend in history?
by Alex Fletcher
Newstex Web Blogs
November 20, 2007
This blog post discusses IBM’s recent announcement of its plans to offer a new platform called Blue Cloud. Blue Cloud is essentially an infrastructure that combines grid computing software, Xen and Power VM virtualized Linux operating system images and Hadoop, an open source software platform that links and facilitates the use of SaaS apps. The debate Fletcher is addressing in this post is whether infrastructure will continue to be important to the technology, and particularly the computer industry. It seems that the answer is yes. Most notably, “as the demand for Web 2.0 capabilities continues to explode over the next three to five years, companies across the globe will have to investigate if/how their current IT infrastructure will scale towards meeting that demand internally and externally.” In the world of Web 2.0 data storage, access, and the speed access are all very important themes. Creating a strong scalable infrastructure through cloud computing appears to be the direction we are heading as demand increases and industry must respond.
This post is relevant to understanding cloud computing because it poses many interesting questions about the purpose and importance of infrastructure in a digital world. As Web 2.0 expands and electronic data in created and needs to be stored, the best infrastructure will control how and where that information is stored, as well as who is able to access the information. Is what is happening today look like another important trend in history?
"Universities Combine 'Cloud' Forces"
by William Bulkeley
The Wall Street Journal
October 8, 2007
This article announces an interesting new partnership between Google and IBM. The partnership will form a cloud for data storage and processing by computer science and programming students and professors. The cluster of computers forming the cloud network will consist initially consist of 400 computers, with plans to expand to 4,000. The cloud will be led by the University of Washington in Seattle, but it will be accessible by students and faculty at 5 other universities including: Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, MIT, University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Maryland. The purpose of the project is to improve computer science and computer programming academic curriculum. Until recently, curriculum in both fields has been primarily focused on "teaching students how to program a single server and not giving them opportunities to learn about parallel programming." [pg. 2] IBM and Google intend to create clustered computer environments in academic centers so that students can be more familiar with their (and a growing number of other companies) style of infrastructure in preparing them for future professional experiences. Google and IBM will initially each contribute $20M-$25M to get the project off the ground.
Is operating in the cloud really the way of the future? Obviously, Google and IBM (along with Amazon, and several others) would say "of course!" This article raises questions about whether new technology is adopted because it is necessarily more efficient, cheaper, etc., or because it is what professionals in their respective fields are taught and feel comfortable using? This collaboration between IBM and Google will be interesting to follow and learn more about as time progresses.
by William Bulkeley
The Wall Street Journal
October 8, 2007
This article announces an interesting new partnership between Google and IBM. The partnership will form a cloud for data storage and processing by computer science and programming students and professors. The cluster of computers forming the cloud network will consist initially consist of 400 computers, with plans to expand to 4,000. The cloud will be led by the University of Washington in Seattle, but it will be accessible by students and faculty at 5 other universities including: Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, MIT, University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Maryland. The purpose of the project is to improve computer science and computer programming academic curriculum. Until recently, curriculum in both fields has been primarily focused on "teaching students how to program a single server and not giving them opportunities to learn about parallel programming." [pg. 2] IBM and Google intend to create clustered computer environments in academic centers so that students can be more familiar with their (and a growing number of other companies) style of infrastructure in preparing them for future professional experiences. Google and IBM will initially each contribute $20M-$25M to get the project off the ground.
Is operating in the cloud really the way of the future? Obviously, Google and IBM (along with Amazon, and several others) would say "of course!" This article raises questions about whether new technology is adopted because it is necessarily more efficient, cheaper, etc., or because it is what professionals in their respective fields are taught and feel comfortable using? This collaboration between IBM and Google will be interesting to follow and learn more about as time progresses.
IBM explanation of how congestion pricing tolls are monitored
West,J . "How open is open enough? Melding proprietary and open source platform strategies" Research policy [0048-7333] 32.7 (2003). 1259-.
This paper explores the influential relationship that has developed over the last decade between open source software and commercial software houses. In contrast to other portrayals, this paper begins with the assertion that purely open source and purely proprietary are equally ineffective extremes, and that the truth lies in some hybrid of the two. The article continues as a case study of three companies: Apple, IBM, and Sun Microsystems.
By way of introduction, the paper makes two points – first the obvious point that a complete abandonment of traditional property rights in favor of totally open licensing would have taken away the very thing that had made these companies successful in the first place – the proprietary differences between their software and their competitors. It points out as well that an initial hurdle for a potential alliance between corporation and open source is the latter’s lack of central management – with whom can a corporation negotiate without a central leader to definitively represent an open source project as large as, say, Linux?
The first case study is that of Apple, a company that faced increasing obsolescence of its core operating system (Mac OS) by the mid-1990s, and was unable to come up with a viable proprietary alternative. Apple’s strategy was to “embrace and enhance” existing open source technologies, and to this end it made headlines when it released the core of its new operating system, Mac OS X, as a fully open source project. It retained its competitive advantage, however, by releasing only material which was essentially already available, keeping proprietary the graphical interface which differentiated its product from competitors’ and other high-level components.
IBM embraced open source products in a similar way when the chose Apache, the open source web server, as the basis for their new line of server products. This adoption proved to be a boon for the Apache project, which received support from a major corporation. IBM’s adoption of Linux came later, but its portability (one of the foci of the open source movement) eventually allowed IBM to use Linux as the standard platform for a variety of products. In IBM’s commercial model, money isn’t made off the products themselves, but in the pairing of software with hardware, support, consulting, and other services.
Sun, although initially hesitant to embrace open source, eventually opened up several of its projects under restrictive licenses that allowed people to view and modify the source, but not to redistribute it for profit without paying royalties. In this way, Sun protected its property rights and proprietary advantage while reaping the benefits of community involvement with and contribution to its products.
Two important points can be drawn from these cases and from the article itself: firstly it is interesting to note that in the first two cases, where companies adopted previously existing products, they adopted products whose licenses allowed commercial derivative works. The license governing Linux and many other open source projects does not allow this; this is an important distinction. The second point is the contrast between Apple and Sun’s strategy – open parts vs. partly open. While Apple retains competitive advantage by opening only parts of their product (open parts), Sun retains their advantage by opening their products with important limitations that preserve that advantage (partly open).
By way of introduction, the paper makes two points – first the obvious point that a complete abandonment of traditional property rights in favor of totally open licensing would have taken away the very thing that had made these companies successful in the first place – the proprietary differences between their software and their competitors. It points out as well that an initial hurdle for a potential alliance between corporation and open source is the latter’s lack of central management – with whom can a corporation negotiate without a central leader to definitively represent an open source project as large as, say, Linux?
The first case study is that of Apple, a company that faced increasing obsolescence of its core operating system (Mac OS) by the mid-1990s, and was unable to come up with a viable proprietary alternative. Apple’s strategy was to “embrace and enhance” existing open source technologies, and to this end it made headlines when it released the core of its new operating system, Mac OS X, as a fully open source project. It retained its competitive advantage, however, by releasing only material which was essentially already available, keeping proprietary the graphical interface which differentiated its product from competitors’ and other high-level components.
IBM embraced open source products in a similar way when the chose Apache, the open source web server, as the basis for their new line of server products. This adoption proved to be a boon for the Apache project, which received support from a major corporation. IBM’s adoption of Linux came later, but its portability (one of the foci of the open source movement) eventually allowed IBM to use Linux as the standard platform for a variety of products. In IBM’s commercial model, money isn’t made off the products themselves, but in the pairing of software with hardware, support, consulting, and other services.
Sun, although initially hesitant to embrace open source, eventually opened up several of its projects under restrictive licenses that allowed people to view and modify the source, but not to redistribute it for profit without paying royalties. In this way, Sun protected its property rights and proprietary advantage while reaping the benefits of community involvement with and contribution to its products.
Two important points can be drawn from these cases and from the article itself: firstly it is interesting to note that in the first two cases, where companies adopted previously existing products, they adopted products whose licenses allowed commercial derivative works. The license governing Linux and many other open source projects does not allow this; this is an important distinction. The second point is the contrast between Apple and Sun’s strategy – open parts vs. partly open. While Apple retains competitive advantage by opening only parts of their product (open parts), Sun retains their advantage by opening their products with important limitations that preserve that advantage (partly open).
belongs to Renegades in the Land of Copyright. project
tagged apache apple computers free_software ibm linux mac_os_x open_source oss software sun
by haw
...on 28-NOV-06