Three Screams and a Clod

Three Screams and a Clod
Last week, I wrote a deliberately provocative commentary, "Kickin' It In The Cloud," in which I described how Google's cloud computing mindshare vastly outperforms the company's cloud computing revenues. Put more succinctly, close to 99 percent of the almost $24 billion in revenues Google posted in 2009 is tied directly to advertising revenue on search results. This makes complaints about Microsoft's inability to expand beyond its core products seems somewhat humorous by comparison Microsoft MCTS Training.

Last week's reality check shouldn't obscure one simple fact, however. The future of computing is very clearly in the cloud—just ask Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who spent last week explaining that to the nation's top CEOs. Although Google has yet to establish a financially successful cloud computing product to rival the software dynasties Microsoft owns, Google's advertising revenues are hefty enough to finance numerous projects for decades to come. Like the Microsoft of 15 years ago, Google can keep trying and trying until it establishes a beachhead, all while keeping less well-funded competitors at bay. And my expectation is that, left unchecked, it will be successful at doing so.

Not coincidentally, Google held its third annual Google I/O conference this past week. Like Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) and Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), this developer-oriented show provides a revealing glimpse at where the company's platforms are heading. Google I/O 2010 was fascinating for a number of reasons, but for me it provided an interesting look at how Google views the world and how its competitors—Microsoft among them—can hope to beat back this seemingly unstoppable force. Here are the major business-oriented product and technology announcements Google made during this show, and how I feel Microsoft is positioned from a competitive standpoint.
Open Standards

Since its products are essentially all web-based, Google makes a big deal out of the open nature of the technologies underlying these products. And to its credit, Google does open source many of its technologies, effectively losing control of them in the process. With that said, the proprietary versus open source debate has been done to death. It's as hard to imagine a world of only open-source technologies as it is to imagine the reverse. The point is that proprietary and open-source technologies will continue to coexist going forward. Google gets that, even though the company doesn't point it out very often. I don't recall Google open sourcing its advertising engine. Just a thought Microsoft MCITP Certification.

In a bid to position Google as the future, Google vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra—a former Microsoft executive, by the way—noted that "the web is the most important platform of our generation." His aim was also to position Microsoft as the past. But come on, there's no reason Microsoft can't extend its traditional software product lines successfully to the cloud. And I'd argue that decades of experience in the traditional software market will only help Microsoft as it moves ahead to yet another platform. Google's occasional support of open source isn't going to prevent that.