Forget Google Chrome OS: Root for Microsoft, Apple, and Linux

Yesterday, Google announced their intention to release a new operating system designed primarily for Netbooks.  The new operating system, Chrome OS, will now compete against established Linux vendors as well as Microsoft for market and mind share.  While the initial reactions to this announcement were positive, I have a different spin.

This announcement underscores a major challenge at Google; they are a “one trick pony”.  Google is simply a giant advertising machine that needs critical inputs regarding our personal information to better serve their advertising clients.  While many individuals cling to an unhealthy affection towards Google, the truth is Google provides its services, search, mail, calendar, gears, etc. not for the sake of good, but for the sake of money.

At first, Google was satisfied with the collection of information via third party web browsers such as Firefox and IE.  However, their hunger for personal information led them to release an even more intrusive technology; the Chrome browser.  Now they crave even more information that can only be obtained via having access to everything; the Operating System.  By collecting all this personal information, whether it is scrubbed or not, Google can better profile its users and charge more to its advertisers.  It’s not simply a numbers game any longer as the quality of the information about your user population is as, if not more, important then the quantity; a lesson Facebook plays perfectly.

I’m rooting for Microsoft, Apple, and Linux to put Google’s Chrome OS back in its preverbal box. Google can keep Android, Chrome, Desktop Search, and anything else they desire to load on my personal computers to themselves.  Does anyone seriously think Microsoft did not see this coming?  If Apple released OS XI generically, would anyone care about Chrome OS?  Will Chrome OS make a dent in the fiercely loyal and growing Ubuntu population?

Google’s corporate motto may say “Don’t be evil”, but that’s like the pot calling the kettle black.  One person’s road to Evil is another one’s road to riches.

Nortel: Goodbye Old Friend

After 100 plus years as Canada’s Premier Telecommunication powerhouse, Nortel is de-listing from the TSX and is quietly liquidating itself.  Sadly, the world’s economic woes has tied the Canadian Government’s hands and Nortel could not be saved.   In the past, Canada has clung to Nortel like the US clings to GM.

Unfortunately, Nortel is a case study in poor management, poor execution, and a failed acquisition strategy. How does a company that purchased the likes of Bay Networks, Shasta Networks, and Alteon WebSystems, Inc. fail? Nortel reads like the novel Moby Dick as they perpetually chased Cisco, Ericsson, Lucent, and others to no avail.

Suprisingly, neither Huawei or ZTE have emerged as potential suitors for pieces of this once great company.  While these companies may not need or want Nortel’s technology, they would greatly benefit from Nortel’s reseller channel and name brand recongition.  This may be an indication that these “new” giants are waiting for more tangible signs of a North American recovery prior to jumping in via inorganic means.

Nortel’s exit could not come at a better time for both Cisco and Juniper.  As Cisco’s market share has declined a bit and Juniper has finally “seen the light” within their enterprise division, these companies will certainly commence sales campaigns marketed towards Nortel’s existing customer base.  An Avaya bid for Nortel’s Enteprise Business would do little to impact such a campaing nor would it calm the nerves of exiting customers.

So with a “tip of the cap” I bid Nortel adeu and wish her employees, partners, and customers nothing but the best.   This ends a significant chapter of IT and it was definately a wild ride.

Google gets the Hype; Oracle and IBM get the Business

Google announced a new on-line database called Fusion Tables using technology they acquired from Transformic.  Transformic pioneered the use of data-spaces; a technology that has been around since the early 1990s.  Unfortunately, this technology was “useless” until the great brains at Google got their hands on it and now it’s going to shake up the entire database market.

It obvious to some writers and analysts, that Google has better talent than Oracle and IBM combined.  After-all, they now have data-spaces and Fusion.  Does Oracle or IBM have this? Wait, Oracle has Fusion; are we looking at a lawsuit? What about Teradata or Aster Data or Greenplum, or Postgress, or MySQL, or Netezza, or EnterpriseDB, do they have it?  If Google has it you can bet it’s better than everyone else’s.

Why is it that Google can do no wrong?  Search, Adds, Maps, Email, IM, Calendar, Web Sites, Phones,  Free Lunches, Video, Blogs, Free Dinners, Databases, Home Power Management, and, let’s all keep our fingers crossed, Netbooks.  Google should just buy Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle outright and put them out of their misery.

Let’s get the facts straight.  Oracle and IBM are dynamic companies that rule the database market.  In fact, Oracle and IBM have diversified products and services that are helping them through this tough economy.  Additionally, they have advanced R&D, patents, deep pockets, and access to the world’s largest and most powerful enterprises.  Finally, they are keenly aware of cloud computing and what that means to their businesses; i.e. databases.

Google has Advertisements.  While Ads are a great thing, hopefully one day people will rise up and say enough.  Enough profiling, enough storing information, enough analysis, enough of collecting personal data, enough, enough, enough.   Perhaps Google should look to improve their core businesses because the competition is heating up for Search and Ads.

Google get’s the hype; Oracle and IBM get the business.

Will Cisco Succeed Where Cassatt Failed?

If you read most mainstream blogs or publications, then you would think we were in the midst of the most significant shift in computing since its invention.  Virtualization and Cloud Computing have become the buzz words of analysts, writers, and old/new/start-up companies looking to catch the wave.   While the technology is interesting, for as many issues that are solved, more are created.  “New” architectures are really a re-hash of old technology and management/security are still an after-thought.  To put it another way, the adoption, integration, and application of this technology will not come at the cost of revenue; hardware or software.

Those that attempt to challenge the status quo should look no further than the now defunct Cassatt (acquired by CA).  Cassatt attempted to break down the silos between hardware and software thereby redefining the datacenter.  Cassatt viewed the datacenter as hundreds of servers with thousands of applications all with their own criticality and SLAs.  They challenged the “sticky note” mentality of purchasing new hardware for every application and labeling its name/IP Address and ownership.  Cassatt may have been the first vendor to realize that virtualization was not the answer to everything, that the walls between networking, servers, and applications needed to be broken, and that virtual sprawl is a real problem.   In the end, Cassatt did not have the market power or presence to change the industry; Cisco is a different story.

On the surface, Cisco entering the datacenter server and virtualization markets is uninspiring.  I wrote that, “Perhaps the innovator’s dilemma has finally caught up with Cisco because I expected more from them then simply launching a blade system with the Cisco badge on the bezel.”  Over the past few weeks, I have been wondering if Cisco’s current strategy is really a Trojan horse designed to attack the status quo.  After all HP, IBM, Dell, Intel, EMC, and Microsoft have much to lose.  What if Cisco redefined the datacenter back to its components; CPU, memory, storage, networking, etc.  They could create new devices that resemble the CRS-1 Multi Chassis System ala the trusty old mainframe that offers superior value and computing power for the price.  Also, they’ll need to redefine security and management, but that is only a BMC acquisition away.

Cisco’s challenge is marketing makes everyone look the same.  HP, IBM, SUN, Cisco, and more have all rolled out new datacenter strategies that feel eerily similar.  All this marketing FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) makes a paradigm shift more difficult.  Cisco’s grown up from an obscure networking company to a DOW Jones Component Powerhouse.  Can Cisco redefine the datacenter and bring about the titanic change within computing the industry craves?  And, will Cisco succeed where Cassatt failed?

What’s in your Closet?

What do countless power cords, hundreds of various sizes of Ethernet cables, 10 and 10/100M switches, vintage wireless access points and routers, bricks of all shapes and sizes, 1 and 2 mega pixel cameras, 3.5 and 5.25 floppy drives, a few CD players, a few keyboards, an external burner, printers from an era gone-by, Dongles, and an assortment of computers that belong in a museum have in common? They all are hiding in my closet!

What’s worse is my inability to throw any of it away; even things that are broken. Why throw out a perfectly good 3.5 inch drive? Someday I may need to recover a file on one of the hundreds of disks that are scattered throughout my home. Someday I’ll turn all my P3/P4 computers into a giant Hadoop cluster that will power various ideas I have in my head. I’m still searching for my old Commodore 64 and trusty tape drive.

Thankfully, the rate of growth of my stockpiles have slowed down With the rise of open source software and specifically virtualization, I can do more with less physical hardware. Of course, I’m always on the hunt for a deal; Craigslist, Ebay, friends, etc. After-all, it may be time to look at the new Intel i7 chips and perhaps an Intel based Apple.

What’s in your closet?

Oracle buys VirtualIron: Is disruption coming?

Oracle has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase VirtualIron for an undisclosed sum of money. While my initial reaction was to find out what the break-up fee was, I now see the value in this acquisition. Perhaps my angst is centered around VirtualIron’s reputation in the open source community as a consumer of and not a contributor to the Xen Open Source Project.

As I’ve stated before, the gem of Oracle’s acquisition of Sun lies within Sun’s xVM virtualization projects; xVM includes virtualzation products for servers, storage, and workstations. In the early days of x86 virtualization, the battle lines were draw around the hypervisor technology itself. Today, the hypervisor has become a commodity with a plethora of commercial and open source options and the real battle centers around managing virtualized environments.

To that end, Sun has xVM Ops Center but it lags behind VMware’s Virtual Infrastructure 3 and Citrix’s XenServer. This is where the VirtualIron acquisition makes perfect sense. VirtualIron’s strategy has revolved around creating software based on the Xen Open Source Project with comparative functionality to VMware at a lower price point. Since Sun’s xVM technology is based on both the Xen Open Source Project as well as Sun’s Logical Domains (LDOM) technology, VirtualIron plugs a huge hole in Sun’s portfolio.

Oracle has never been a “me too” company, so their challenge will be to elevate VirtualIron’s products to equal footing with VMware; functionality, price, and innovation. Additionally, Oracle needs to create a new strategy to attack VMware’s recently announced vSphere Cloud Computing OS product. Clearly, the pressure is on both Oracle’s engineering teams and marketing teams to make this transition. If Oracle’s marketing team can create the same type of buzz they achieved with Fusion, then Oracle will redefine the virtualization industry.

Finally, Oracle is not done shopping. To be a player within the virtualizatoin management space you need to be able to offer heterogeneous management. Oracle must be eying companies such as Veeam or Embotics. These type of companies would complete the picture and cause major disruption in the industry. The real question is where does Oracle draw the line? Do they want to challenge IBM, BMC, CA, or HP? For what it’s worth, I sure do hope so!

Technology: A bright future!

Today’s technical headlines are dominated with the likes of Cisco, Juniper, IBM, HP, Oracle, Microsoft, Intel, Google, Research In Motion, Apple, Dell, SAP, Nokia, and more. The common denominator with all these companies is size; size of their revenue streams, size of their sales forces, size of their channels, size of their bank accounts, size of their checks to Gartner, Forrester, EMA, etc. and more.

Some companies believe in organic growth while others prefer inorganic growth through large and small acquisitions. Some spend time winning and keeping customers happy while others would rather spend money on fancy marketing campaigns. Some have grown so large that they compete with themselves while others seem lost defending tired old positions and ideas. Some have executives that are the envy of the industry while others are saddled with executives born out of the dot com boom.

We have lived through HDLC, X.25, Banyon Vines, Frame Relay, ATM, Token Ring, Twin-X, give way to Ethernet, Wireless, MPLS, and more. We’ve lived through the wars between OS/2 and Windows, Active Directory vs. Novel Directory Services, Word Perfect vs. Word, Cisco vs. Motorola, Palm vs. RIM, Inktomi vs Google, and more. We saw RISC vs CISC, Unix vs Linux, Mainframe vs. Servers, Distributed Computing vs Datacenters, Mainframes vs. servers acting as mainframes, Virtualization vs. everything, and more.

While we have come so far, we have so much further to go. While the Internet has become a nice to have to a must have, it remains slow, unsecured, and unreliable. While TCP/IP binds us together, it has created a new wild west for criminals and electronic warfare. While we cannot live without our mobile phones, we can’t drive across town or enter our homes without the connection dropping. While everyone’s memories are electronic, data back-up remains cumbersome and an afterthought. While we crave open standards, we are saddled with proprietary operating systems and applications that stifle innovation and choice.

To the large companies, trash the Innovator’s Dilemma and innovate your respective industries. Don’t be afraid of change, embrace it (and I’m not talking about reorganization!) To the small companies, disrupt with technology and business models. Don’t be afraid of the large companies and carve out your niches. To the start-ups, go for it!
Don’t believe the naysayers whether they be analysts, VCs, or “friends” and believe in yourselves.

Here’s to innovation, disruption, and the bright future of technology!

Rackable a Takeover Target?

Rackable quietly purchased SGI from bankruptcy court for a mere $42.5 million. It’s a sad end for SGI, a once great computing pioneer that missed the x86 and Window’s revolution. For Rackable, this gives them access to SGI’s high performance computing products and research and development in the areas of power, cooling, visualization, and storage.

While Rackable is known for their servers and storage portfolio, they have entered the world of green datacenters with their Eco-Logical chassis. As the datacenter market is rapidly changing, the competitive walls are surely closing-in on Rackable. After-all, who would expect Rackable to survive a battle against Oracle, Cisco, HP, and IBM? At least that’s what the big boys want you to think.

Rackable’s portfolio compares quite favorably to the others in the marketplace; albeit without the marketing and services flash of their larger rivals. Additionally, Rackable has some unique products with their CloudRack and CloudRack C2 product lines achieving remarkable density and power/cooling ratios. Heck, Rackable even overs a data center in a container (ICE Cube).

It seems to me with all these goodies, Rackable is a legitimate takeover target. As of this posting, their market cap is around $161 Million. That’s a far cry from the billions Oracle Spent on Sun or Dell’s current $23 Billion valuation. If Brocade, Juniper, Siemens (Extreme Networks), Adtran, Turin, or more wanted into the “unified computing” space, then why not Rackable? Or, does private equity / venture capitalist firms show some vision and combine the assets of several companies together to create a viable challenger to Cisco, HP, and IBM?

M&A speculation is always a fascinating discussion, but for now I’ll say goodbye to a once great visionary company (SGI) while tipping the cap to Rackable for taking advantage of the current economic state of affairs.

Oracle’s To Do List

In the high stakes of M&A chicken, Oracle has stolen Sun from IBM and has changed the IT landscape forever. While this makes for great headlines, the hard work has yet to be started.

To do list (not complete):

* Pump life into Sun’s workforce
* Reassure Sun’s customers
* Calm Sun’s channel
* Dismantle Sun’s executive management team
* Triage Sun’s product portfolio
* Integrate, Integrate, Integrate
* Market, Market, Market
* Embrace the Open Source Community
* Provide a vision for Java, GlassFish, OpenOffice, VirtualBox, etc.
* Disrupt Cisco, HP, and IBM
* Attack the storage and storage back-up markets
* Attack Netezza and Teradata
* Promote Oracle 3.0: The Application Centric Datacenter
* Use Oracle’s Market Power to change the IT Paradigm

If Larry really wants to challenge Cisco, HP and IBM, he needs two more pieces; a top-of-the-rack switch and a next generation datacenter switch. Look no further than Arista Networks and Woven Systems.

Finally, would Oracle dare to disrupt the industry with an innovative pricing model? Would they take a loss on equipment for lucrative software and maintenance revenue? Or, do they show the world how Open Source Software can make money without inhibiting the community? Oracle in a box or a cloud?

Success or failure will be determined by Larry’s team and his will. Do this right and this industry will never be the same. Do this wrong, and the critics, IBM, HP, and Cisco will smile from sea to shinning sea. It’s hard to bet against Oracle and Larry Ellison and I’m not betting against this Iron Man of Tech.

The Sun Shines on Oracle

What a way to start the day as the Sun is shining bright on Oracle! Ellison has guts, vision, a good management team, and the cash to swoop in and throw the DB, Virtualization, storage, and server market on its head.

Oracle and Solaris are like bread and butter. Oracle gets to defend their high-end database deployments by ensuring that Solaris has a future. They also pick up MySQL and overnight they go form open source wannabe to an open source powerhouse. They also get access to Sun’s investment in Greenplum (petabyte data warehousing). Additionally, Oracle has opened a front against HP, IBM, and Cisco by combining not only selling applications, but also hardware.

However the real gems are Sun’s virtualizaton and datacenter solutions. Oracle now has the ability to compete head-to-head with VMware, Citrix, Red Hat, and Microsoft for virtualizaton supremacy. They now own Sun’s xVM products and solutions that are cutting-edge. Finally, Oracle has the ability to compete with Cisco’s datacenter vision by not only packaging routing/switching/storage but also applications into a virtualized system.

Mark your calendars, April 20th 2009 may become the day IBM regrets for years to come. If Cisco can’t get their hands on VMware, they may be stuck in the what-could-have-been blues. HP must adjust to new competition and Dell has got to be thinking what-about-us? Netezza, HP, and Teradata have awoke to a significant change in the industry and stronger competitor. Finally, this industry may never be the same as a software giant has entered the hardware business.

Sun needs three things to be successful; the right management team (check), the right strategy (check), and market reach and power (check). Who would have ever thought Oracle would break the software only paradigm? More M&A to come, but hats-off to Oracle.