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BOSTON--Google sees all enterprise trends pointing toward cloud computing, and it wants a piece of the action.

"The next 10 years of innovations are going to be in the cloud. Enterprise software is not going away, but there is a transition taking place," said Rishi Chandra, product manager for Google Enterprise.

Chandra, speaking at the Enterprise 2.0 conference here, laid out his case for why Google stands to gain more business customers in the coming years. Foremost is Google's strength in the consumer market, which he said will eventually translate into a stronghold in business computing.

Google doesn't have all of the answers, but it does have big enterprise plans.

(Credit: Mike Ricciuti/CNET News.com)

"The cloud has arrived. It's not a question of when, but how fast it will arrive. Google runs itself off of Google apps," he said.

Chandra acknowledged that several well-established competitors, including Microsoft, Amazon.com, Salesforce.com, and others are converging on the same market: delivering business applications via the Web with the same reliability and security as existing on-premise systems.

He downplayed competitive rivalries with Microsoft. "We are competitors with Microsoft. But we don't think about it in a competitive way. We are working to bring apps and a new way of using apps to the market today. We're all about end user focus," he said.

Microsoft, of course, has its own cloud-based plan. While Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie may worry most about open source, Google's larger ambitions are clearly on his mind. Microsoft has discussed some of its cloud computing plans under the Live Mesh umbrella. More details are expected later this year.

Chandra said four trends in the industry are playing to Google's strengths. First, he said Google sees technology innovation being spurred by the consumer market. The consumer world is more "Darwinian" than the enterprise world. Users are unlikely to stick with an inferior product. "The cost of switching is zero in the consumer world. Millions and millions of testers in the consumer world help the enterprise market. As a result, users are getting better technology than the enterprise world. IM, search, VoIP, all have foundations in the consumer world," he said.

Google has learned several lessons from the consumer market, Chandra said. "Simplicity wins. Not lowest-common denominator simplicity. Instead, you build a powerful, robust tool that is easy to use. That technology from the consumer space will translate into the enterprise."

Another trend, Chandra said, is the rise of the "power collaborator" within companies. "In the enterprise, things are still built for the power user. Software is built by experts for experts. Increasingly, people work in teams. We believe that you need to do a complete rethink to accommodate this new generation of employees. It shouldn't matter what OS people use, or in what geography they're located. Software is based on open standards. This is the vision of cloud computing and why we think this is the vision for the next generation of enterprise computing."

Also, the economics of enterprise computing are changing, Chandra said. Companies are being forced to deal with scalability to handle the increasing flood of content, video, and photos. He cited Picasa, Google's photo site, which handles 7 million images per day. "There is a huge benefit that we can share with the market because of that," he said. Google's App Engine, basically a scalable hosting platform, offers "almost unlimited scalability. Honestly, we don't know where this is going. There are others like Amazon and Salesforce.com in this market. But the opportunity is huge," he said.

Finally, Chandra said the barriers to adoption of cloud computing by enterprises are beginning to fall away. In what might have been a competitive dig aimed at Amazon, which has experienced several outages in the past week, Chandra cited reliability as a major concern for businesses. "Reliability, with the notion that Web apps were based in a consumer world, it was expected that they were somewhat flaky. Now, Google cannot go down. Customers will leave us if that happens. We have invested in this," he said.

Remember the movie The Game, with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn as unlikely brothers, shot before the backdrop of vertiginous San Francisco?

Well, here's a new interface for the city by the Bay: SFZero is "a new representation for the data that's already there. Your mind is full of inaccurate representations that are affecting the way you use the San Francisco data flow, steering you away from interaction and collaboration and toward unproductive reflexive data loops.

SFZero designers are working double shifts to engineer this next-generation interface that will bring you together with your cohabitants to experience the freedom that is hard-coded into San Francisco's protocol."

Sounds enigmatic, looks enigmatic, and is enigmatic. I am therefore not sure if I fully get it, but in any case, SFZero seems to be a new kind of ARG (alternate-reality game)--a "Collaborative Production Game," as they call it.

"Let Someone Else Plan Your Day!" SFZero says. "Release total control of your life to an anonymous source that supplies you with instructions and directions!"

How can you not sign up for that?

Hat tip to Chelsea Holden Baker.

The nuclear winter in technology talk sparked by Marc Andreessen wasn't exactly on my mind as I got rid of some boxes in the garage over the weekend.

But beneath a tub of paperback books and snow chains I'd managed to never use, there was an archeological treasure: boxes of old reporters' notes and Web 1.0 tchotchkes from an array of tech boom companies my wife and I wrote about in the 1990s for publications such as PC Week and Business 2.0.

Andreessen: Sage or cranky old man?

(Credit: Seth Rosenblatt/CNET Networks)

There was a lint brush from BroadVision (an e-commerce software company...still in business) a smartcard from a RedHerring conference (the original RH), and a first-aid kit from BackWeb Technologies (treat information overload!). Who gave me that giant clown pez dispenser? I have no idea, but it still creeps me out.

The Web-inspired tech boom was an extravagant affair, of course, and it didn't end so well. This time? For all the "tut tuts" about pricey parties and weak or flat-out delusional business models at little social networks, the inevitable bust (and there will be one at some point) won't be as crushing as the last one. There hasn't been a wild market for initial public offerings. The tech stocks that have mushroomed mostly belong to very profitable companies like Google and Apple. And the only people who stand to lose their shirts are venture capitalists (of course, if you're a venture capitalist this isn't something you take comfort in).

In short, relax folks. Irrational exuberance, as off-putting as it may be, is a normal part of the boom and bust cycle of the tech industry. But--and this is a big caveat--let's not so quickly dismiss what Andreessen had to say about hoarding cash and preparing for bad times ahead. Here's a guy who's run the gauntlet from the wild days at Netscape to the hype of his high-risk, e-commerce hosting outfit Loudcloud, which after the dot-com bust was turned into a more sensible software company. Now he has Ning, his social-networking company trying to make a go of it. If you want to learn about drunkenness, as they say, go to the town lush. If you want to learn about starting an Internet company, there are worse people to go to than Andreessen, who's still just in his 30s.

Was Andreessen being self-serving last week? Maybe. Alarmist? Sure; for all the genuine concern about the economy, tech spending seems to be chugging along. Still, word leaked Monday that someone is giving Jeff Dachis $50 million to start something that looks a lot like the 2.0 version of Razorfish, that giant e-commerce consulting company from the '90s--so it's not like the tech industry isn't capable of repeating old mistakes.

Now about those boxes. Let's start with the PC Week boom-era cover stories:

"Virtual economics: A house of cards." The June 1999 story asked, "How long can Internet firms continue to shun profits for growth?" It turns out the answer was about 18 months. Swap in today's "social networks" for "e-commerce companies" and we've got ourselves a discussion.

"BizTalk: All Talk?" In January 2000, we had been waiting for about nine months on new technology Microsoft called BizTalk. It was cloud computing before cloud computing. Guess what? They've finally delivered on cloud computing.

"Warning! E-com Under Construction." Think Twitter has had a rough go of it lately? At least they're not costing anyone hard cash. In the first half of 1999, eBay, Charles Schwab's online system, and E-Trade all suffered major outages. The culprit: popularity and probably some database glitches. But they did fix the problem, as will Twitter...in time. Now Twitter just had to find a way to make money.

Other, more painful items included:

Prospectus for Ziff-Davis IPO. Before CNET bought ZDNet and the Ziff magazines went into their slow decline, ZD (PC Week's publisher) was a tech powerhouse. Note to self: Even the biggest publications can be undercut by smaller, more innovative competitors.

Volvo brochure. On a 30-year-old journalist's salary? OK, so I got carried away, too. But I really did think those ZD options would be worth something.

Receipt for a $500 salon junket. Incredibly, my wife convinced her bosses at the old Business 2.0 to let her review a swanky salon, and pay for it! Ah, the good old days of tech journalism. No, I don't know what that had to do with technology either.

COBRA application form. Yep, the party had to end. My wife and just about everyone else at the old B 2.0 was laid off in the so-called merger with Time Warner's eCompany Now. When the requisite letter asking if she wanted to extend her benefits at her own cost arrived in the mail, we knew the gravy train had officially gone off the tracks.

Anyone who participated in it and claims they weren't caught up in the Web 1.0 bubble is a liar or Warren Buffett. Those execs and writers of the dot-com boom faced plenty of naysayers. And in fairness to Andreessen, a target for many of those naysayers, I think he was just trying to sound cautious and used overly hyperbolic language to make his point.

I do remember reporters who covered the PC boom in the late-'80s groaning at all that "World Wide Web nonsense" as I downloaded my third or fourth free Netscape Navigator browser of the month. And when the people I thought were nabobs of negativity covered the PC boom, the reporters who covered the mini-computer boom before that probably thought those silly desktop computers were nonsense, too.

It's the fine art of old-person condescension. Much of that unsolicited advice is best ignored, else you never take a chance. But it's also good to squirrel away a few pennies, just in case the old dude is right.

SAN FRANCISCO--It's no secret that spam now pollutes Web sites as well as e-mail in-boxes. But Web site operators can take actions to combat it, a Google expert in the area said Friday.

Matt Cutts, Google's lead engineer for combating Web spam, at the Web 2.0 Expo

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team and an engineer who's been working on the problem for eight years, offered some tips about combating it during a speech at the Web 2.0 Expo here.

"Spammers are human," Cutts said. "You have the power to raise their blood pressure. Make them spend more time and effort...If spammer gets frustrated, he's more likely to look for someone easier."

How? Forthwith, some tips for those who manage their own or others' Web sites.

• Use captcha systems to make sure real people, not bots, are commenting on your site. He uses a simple math puzzle--what's 2 + 2?--but he also likes KittenAuth, which makes people identify kitten photos.

One blogger merely requires people to type the word "orange" into a field. "The vast majority of bots will never do that," Cutts said.

• Reconfigure software settings after you've installed it. A little modification of various settings will throw bots off the scent. "If you can off the beaten path, away from default software installations, you'll save yourself a ton of grief," he said.

• Employ systems that rank people by trust and reputation. For example, eBay shows how long a person has been a member and how satisfied others are with transactions with that person.

• Don't be afraid of legitimate purveyors of search-engine optimization services. "SEO is not spam. Google does not hate SEO," Cutts said. "There are plenty of white-hat SEO (companies) who can help you out."

Registering your Web site at Google's Webmaster Central site can help find bogus search-engine optimization tricks others may use on your site, such as keywords written in white text on white backgrounds, he added.

SAN FRANCISCO--Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz rightly gets credit for pioneering the corporate blog as a tool to reach customers, employees, and others. But pretty soon the novelty of his methods will wear off, he predicted.

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz speaks at the Web 2.0 Expo

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

"At some point the word 'blogging' will be anachronistic," Schwartz said at the Web 2.0 Expo here in San Francisco. "I communicate."

And he predicted, in effect, that the rest of the executive world will catch up. "Historically, communication took place by being a celebrity CEO who met with heads of state, and got the local media to cover it," he said in an on-stage interview with O'Reily Media chief Tim O'Reilly. "You got the message out in an inefficient and environmentally irresponsible way. Then the Internet came round and gave you a way to reach the entire planet."

In Sun's effort to recover some of the glory and profitability it had in the first Internet bubble, the company has embraced open-source software, adopted servers based on Intel and AMD's x86 processors, and switched CEOs.

One thing hasn't changed, though, from the Scott McNealy era to the Schwartz era: the company tries to be provocative. It's cheaper than advertising, and blogs are just a new way to accomplish the goal.

"If you say undifferentiated things that are expected, then you shouldn't expect anyone to care," Schwartz said, asked about what he meant when he said, "Controversy was...not a byproduct of the strategy--it was the strategy," on his blog earlier this month when discussing his company's open-source processor strategy.

Blogs and open-source software are complementary, Schwartz added.

"Sun makes money by selling the innovations in data centers," but that's a hard market to reach, he said. "Free software and free ideas are the best way to reach the marketplace."

If you can't remember the URL of a site you've once visited, what do you do? You can either scour your history, willing the evasive address to remain listed, or you can search in Google by the keywords you remember and hope the site you want floats near the top of the results.

The latest version of Opera Software's 9.5 Beta browser, released Thursday for Windows, Mac, and Linux, makes fishing for past Web addresses much easier with a new feature called Quick Find.

Can't remember a URL? The Quick Find feature pulls up suggestions based on keyword.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Quick Find essentially bundles the keyword search directly into the Opera browser's address field. Typing in a few keywords produces a list of URLs from your past. Simply clicking the selection opens the Web page. I tested it out, and so far it works as advertised--as a fast, useful time-saver that gives your brain license to forget specific URLs.

Those familiar with Opera Mini will recognize Quick Find as the sister to the "find in page" feature in Opera Mini 4.1.

There are other updates to the beta build, but Quick Find remains the only new feature that users will engage with directly. The official Opera announcement also unveils faster e-mail rendering for its built-in client, support for EV (extended validation) SSL certificates, and more complete antiphishing protection thanks to collaboration with PhishTank and NetCraft's databases.

Then there's the unofficial announcement, leaked by Huib Kleinhout, Opera's desktop team manager, on Opera's blog. Through Opera Link, users will soon be able to synchronize notes in real time between Opera browsers for desktops, mobile phones, and devices.

That feature is in development, an Opera representative contact confirmed, and has not been released in this morning's build. For now, Opera Link behaves as it has been, populating each Opera browser you use (desktop, cell phone, Wii) with bookmarks added from any other.

SAN FRANCISCO--The company behind Photophlow, a site that presents a lively chat room interface around the Flickr photo-sharing site, plans to demonstrate on Thursday a similarly elaborate presentation of Google's YouTube video service.

Start-up Oortle's service, called Videophlow, lets people post videos into a chat room and lets those in the room control the video playback. And as with Photophlow, people can use Videophlow to take advantage of YouTube features such as searching, adding comments, or marking videos as favorites.

Oortle, the company behind Photophlow, is working on a video equivalent called Videophlow.

(Credit: Oortle )

"You'll even be able to throw a tomato at the screen for everyone to see," Neil Berkman, founder of Oortle, said in an interview at the Web 2.0 Expo here, where he is scheduled to demonstrate the technology.

While Videophlow is still undergoing closed testing, Photophlow has been groaning under the weight of its membership, with slow response times and sometimes no access at all.

"Scaling and bug fixing are still our biggest priorities," Berkman said. "Supporting real-time interaction in the way we do means we can't use off-the-shelf software. It's a hard thing to get right, but I'm sure we will."

Streaming videos are tougher than photos for servers to handle, but happily for Oortle, that burden falls on YouTube operator Google. It's no more difficult to build its framework around video than around photo, Berkman said.

Another difference between the earlier site is that Videophlow will have "less emphasis on big public rooms. The main use we'd like to support is small groups of friends watching together," he said.

As with Photophlow, Videophlow is expected to be offered through a private beta test version.

SAN FRANCISCO--The glitzy, interactive abilities of Web 2.0 have led to a profusion of new applications, but the technology also is bringing a new era of security vulnerabilities, a security researcher warned Wednesday.

"Security was a challenge to begin with, but if anything it's getting harder in the Web 2.0 world," said Jacob West, manager of the security research group at Fortify, a company that helps companies make sure their software is secure. He made his comments during a talk at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco here.

Jacob West, manager of the security research group at Fortify

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

A big culprit is JavaScript, a language that's widely used to control Web browsers and enable more sophisticated operations. JavaScript has been around for more than a decade, but new risks are emerging since it's a major component of Ajax, a Web 2.0 technology used to build richly interactive sites.

"The number of unique problems from Ajax will remain pretty small," West said in an interview after his speech. But Ajax means that JavaScript is being used much more widely and in much more complicated ways, so existing vulnerabilities are more widespread, and "attack techniques are improving quickly."

He did describe one particular Ajax-specific problem called JavaScript hijacking. With it, a Web browser that picks up malicious JavaScript code from a Web site can be instructed, in effect, to send confidential information with an attacker.

"JavaScript hijacking is Ajax-specific," West said. It relies on the transmission of personal information packaged as JavaScript code, and "transmitting information with JavaScript I unique to Ajax code."

Another problem triggered by Ajax are that JavaScript is more complex and therefore harder to test. And more sophistication brings more opportunities for problems with "input validation"--making sure that text typed into forms, for example, isn't actually naughty code that could sidestep ordinary scrutiny and run on somebody's computer.

West was pessimistic that fundamental progress would help reduce vulnerabilities. Companies with browsers and Web sites are reluctant to embrace change that would break compatibility with older technology, for example.

"We're talking about fixes that are going to come in the 10-year time frame," he said.

But some are working to at least close up the holes. For example, programmers working on Direct Web Remoting (DWR) and the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) updated their Ajax programming toolkits to head JavaScript hijacking attacks off at the pass.

Other toolkit makers were not so responsive, though, he said: "Microsoft and Yahoo wrote back and said, 'Nope, we're not going to fix that.'"

MENLO PARK, Calif.--If you want to make money as a venture capitalist, the consumer Web offers the highest, most consistent returns, according to Steve Jurvetson.

The low costs required to start these companies is a big part of the appeal, Jurvetson, a partner in Draper Fisher Jurvetson, said in an interview at the Nordic Green conference here this week. By contrast, biodiesel start-ups need millions to get through the experimental stage and then tens of millions to go into pre-production.

Networking also works well with Web companies. A successful word-of-mouth campaign that costs almost nothing can propel growth rates. Skype in a few years collected more than 309 million members. Again, this is something a solar company can't do. If Facebook had to climb on your roof for three days, erect several panels of solar-sensitive glass, and hand you a bill for $20,000 before you could use their product, it wouldn't be that big.

Historically, some consumer Web companies have also figured out ways to exploit inefficiencies in existing versions of similar products. When Hotmail came out, people generally paid for e-mail software. Now it is just a free service supported by ads. Phone service is transforming from a separate expense to a service included in an overall data package. (DFJ was an investor in Hotmail and Skype.)

So laugh all you want at Web 2.0 business plans. They do seem to work. But often, isn't easy to pick the ultimate winners. Veoh Networks seemed to have all the right elements, but it got eclipsed in video sharing by YouTube. Still, you can even make money on a second-tier company.

Interestingly, there's recently been an emergence of companies trying to merge Web functionality with alternative energy. Sungevity, for instance, has come up with a way to give consumers a solar estimate over the Web. Typically, that takes an appointment with a technician.

On other notes, Jurvetson, who sits on the board of Synthetic Genomics, outlined why biological processing may prove superior to thermochemical processing when it comes to making biofuels (Synthetic Genomics creates designer organisms that can metabolize light or waste products into energy or other things). Basically, it comes down to evolution. A metabolic pathway in a microbe may have evolved over millions of years. "I would bet on an evolutionary algorithm over a man-made one," he said.

Microbes often operate at room temperature, so processing, potentially can be more energy efficient.