The cloud is taking over the world of applications, casting a shadow on the desktop. The browser rules. Operating systems are simply plumbing. The Web is the new OS.
The tipping point for the on-demand, software-as-a-service applications has come. No software, as Marc Benioff likes to say, and no downloads. All you need is a browser and Google Apps, Facebook, Amazon.com, MyYahoo, HotMail, Zoho, Salesforce.com, TWiki, or whatever applications (sometimes known as services) you prefer for business or personal use.
If this is really the case, then why is my desktop littered with hybrid applications such as Thwirl, Yahoo Messenger, Alert Thingy, Skype, Gtalk, and a bunch of other widgets and toolbars.
It turns out that taking advantage of computing resources on client devices has some value. Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight are breathing new life into the desktop and so-called rich Internet applications, or RIAs. Browsers are also benefiting from the new technologies. As ZDNet blogger and Adobe evangelist Ryan Stewart writes:
While I'm a huge advocate of desktop RIAs, I think the browser should still be getting a bunch of the attention. And in fact, the browser is still where most of the energy is and as a result a really good RIA platform will build on what they know in the browser and leverage that in their desktop clients.
Look at Adobe. We've got the Flash Player in the browser and you can use ActionScript as well as the Flex Framework to build browser RIAs. Then you can take that exact same knowledge/code and start building a desktop application on AIR. Look at Microsoft. You can build a C# and XAML application in Silverlight then take that code and start building a desktop application in WPF. Look at Java. You can write Java code along (soon) with JavaFX and run it in the browser or as a regular Java app. Seeing a pattern? Same thing with Curl. You can use the Curl language to build a Curl application in the browser and now with Nitro you can take that code and build a desktop application. Mozilla Prism is the most basic example because all you're basically doing is taking a browser application written in Ajax and turning it into a desktop application. The browser space is also where a lot of the Ajax frameworks exist and where companies like OpenLaszlo exist, so there's room for all of those to grow.
Data is increasing moving into the cloud, just as the bits designated as your money are accessed on a mainframe through an ATM card. But the desktop, the browser, and the cloud are meshing. Applications will increasingly become sturdy hybrids, synchronizing online and offline access, delivered with richer interfaces that take advantage of local processing power and OS software.
We'll see more on this topic as the Web 2.0 Expo get under way this week.
Ray Ozzie has a history of trying to break through software and usability barriers. With Lotus Notes, he and his team spent years creating the underlying client/server collaboration technology to enable synchronization, or replication of e-mail online and offline.
Ray Ozzie is synchronizing Microsoft's software strategy.
(Credit: Dan Farber/CNET News.com)His second major initiative, Groove Networks, took the synchronization and collaboration concept into the peer-to-peer realm, allowing individual PCs to communicate directly with one another.
Groove Networks was sold to Microsoft in March 2005, and Ozzie began his next major iteration on a much bigger stage, as Microsoft's chief software architect.
Ozzie teased the next evolution of his decades-long exploration of synchronization and collaboration, which he referred to as a "seamless mesh"--or what I'll call "syncromesh"--in his Mix '08 keynote in Las Vegas:Just imagine the possibilities of unified application management across the device mesh, centralized, Web-based deployment of device-based applications. Imagine an app platform that's cognizant of all of your devices. Now, as it so happens, we've had a team at Microsoft working on this specific scenario for some time, starting with the PC and focused on the question of how we might make life so much easier for individuals if we just brought together all your PCs into a seamless mesh, for users, for developers, using the Web as a hub.
After client/server and peer-to-peer comes the services cloud, small pieces loosely joined in a "mesh."
Microsoft officials aren't saying much about the mesh other than, "Stay tuned." As noted in this post, Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch discovered that Microsoft owns the mesh.com URL, but there is no site as yet.
From what I can gather, Ozzie and team are working on the plumbing required to create a seamless mesh that can synchronize content, services and applications across a variety of devices and user scenarios via the Web as a hub.
Ultimately, the "mesh" requires an overhaul of the back end to support utility computing on a grand scale. In addition, applications need to be "refactored," Ozzie said in his keynote. He didn't fully explain the notion of refactoring, but applications need to have a common user interface across different devices and to leverage the unique capabilities of each form factor. In addition, development tools needs to be "refactored" to support the broad variety of usage scenarios and devices without having to rewrite lots of code or use different tools for each target device.
(Credit:
Microsoft)
At the core of the mesh are data synchronization and sharing engines. With the Web and cloud computing becoming more pervasive, users want to be able to access their data from any device, and for the data to be up-to-date, secure and without duplicate content. That requires an standard synchronization infrastructure between services and applications no matter where they originate.
Ozzie conceived of Simple Sharing Extensions (SSE) in 2005 as the foundation for a decentralized data bus that synchronizes any feed to any device or platform. It has morphed into FeedSynch, a Windows Live service that enables data sharing via RSS and Atom feeds.
FeedSynch is part of Microsoft's Sync Framework, which allows the following capabilities according to Microsoft's documentation.
Add sync support to new and existing applications, services, and devices
Enable collaboration and offline capabilities for any application
Roam and share information from any data store, over any protocol, and over any network configuration
Leverage sync capabilities exposed in Microsoft technologies to create sync ecosystems
Extend the architecture to support custom data types including files
(Credit:
Roy Williams/Caltech)
The "seamless mesh" concept is part of Microsoft's next-generation software platform. Of course, Microsoft cannot abandon it's lucrative client/server software franchises, such as Office or Windows Vista, but Ozzie is taking a practical and measured approach to building bridges that span the client-server and services worlds. Synchronization is a key for working online as well as online in the loosely coupled, collaborative Web.
With Silverlight, the XAML markup language, and multi-programming language support, Microsoft has a cross-platform development environment for creating rich Internet applications. Add in synchronization plumbed from the cloud that invisibly manages devices, applications, and services, whether online or offline, and the mesh starts to make sense.
One question for the future is whether Microsoft will make this synchronization layer for the Web--a kind of worldwide mesh--truly open, or whether it will find ways to bind it a little more closely to its own Live environment. I'm betting that Ozzie's Microsoft takes the open road.
Following a most amazing pre-keynote performance by Vince Mira, a 15-year-old with the voice of Johnny Cash without the gravel, Microsoft Chief Software Architect took the stage to update the software and services strategy, in the context of content, commerce and community, for company.
Vince Mira, the 15-year-old reincarnation of Johnny Cash
(Credit: Dan Farber)As News.com's Ina Fried chronicled in her play-by-play of the keynote, Ozzie offered carefully orchestrated nod to the bid for Yahoo. "I can say its [Yahoo] already added some interesting twists to what promises to be a really, really exciting year," he said.
He noted the huge growth coming in search and advertising (which Yahoo can help Microsoft could intercept) and reference the talented engineering resources that Yahoo would bring to Microsoft.
After getting the Yahoo question out of the way, he outlined the various initiatives across Microsoft to embrace the cloud via connected devices, entertainment, productivity, business and development. He didn't add much to what has already been said about Microsoft's quest to embrace and extend the cloud with its technologies as well as the standard protocols that enable the Web to be useful.
Ozzie did hint at a technology that will create a seamless mesh out of PCs and connected services via the Web. Ozzie said:
Just imagine the possibilities of unified application management across the device mesh, centralized, Web-based deployment of device-based applications. Imagine an app platform that's cognizant of all of your devices. Now, as it so happens, we've had a team at Microsoft working on this specific scenario for some time now, starting with the PC and focused on the question of how we might make life so much easier for individuals if we just brought together all your PCs into a seamless mesh, for users, for developers, using the Web as a hub.
Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch found that Microsoft owns the Mesh.com URL, and it leads to a Windows Live ID sign-in page for a site that isn't Live.
Ray Ozzie on stage at Mix 2008
(Credit: Dan Farber)In the world of cloud and utility computing applications and the back end will need to be "refactored." for this new world. Apps will take advantage of the unique strengths of each device. New front end development skills will be required, Ozzie says, along with back-end technologies.
In closing he told the crowd of developers, "I'd like you to bet on us, and on the power of Internet and the magic of software across a world of devices." In other words, join the Silverlight, XAML revolution and become part of the Microsoft cloud.
Coming up this week, Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie will make one of his rare public appearances to give developers the latest word on the future of the Web and Microsoft software at the Mix '08 conference in Las Vegas.
Ozzie is heading up Microsoft's effort to embrace the Web as a platform, which started in October 2005, when Bill Gates fired off a memo to his executive staff and distinguished engineers with the following call to action:
"The next sea change is upon us. We must recognize this change as an opportunity to take our offerings to the next level, compete in a manner commensurate with our industry responsibilities, and utilize our assets and our broad reach to reshape our business for the benefit of the users of our products, our customers, our partners and ourselves."
More recently, in July 2007, Ozzie touted Microsoft's advantages versus others trying to harness the cloud for applications, namely Google:
"We are the only company with a platform DNA to viably delivery this kind of highly leveraged platform approach to services and we're certainly one of the few companies that has the financial capacity to capitalize on this sea change."
Microsoft is extremely focused on this sea change, but that doesn't mean that the company will unveil a set of Web applications that duplicate the functionality in the Microsoft Office cash cow as a way to compete with upstart Google Apps, as some have predicted.
At the Mix '07 event in April, Ozzie explained the thinking around a cloud-based Office suite:
"[Office Live] will progressively broaden...we have no specific announcements today. In my opening remarks, I laid out a design pattern and you will see it replicated through the offerings we do. You use a PC for what a PC is good for and look at the overall scenario, what is best for the PC and what in services as standalone or in conjunction with a PC or mobile device. In all of our products can use that pattern to extrapolate."
PC client software still plays a crucial role for Microsoft, and accounts for billions in revenue. As example of how Microsoft thinks about services, the company recently refreshed Office Live Workspace, which isn't a Web-based Office but a service that allows users to access, manage and share documents via a browser. Live Workspace does include a rudimentary Web-based word processor, Web Notes.
(Credit:
Microsoft)
Last time I checked in with Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's Business Division, he told me that the browser-based application space is extremely important to watch, but that there hasn't been a lot of demand for Microsoft Office in the cloud. That conversation was about a year ago.
What's clear is that Microsoft is taking a measured approach to moving into cloud, cognizant that client/server Office franchise is at stake. On the enterprise software front, Microsoft has deployed a multitenant "Dynamics CRM Live" service for customers.
As CNET News.com reporter Martin LaMonica and ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley reported, Microsoft plans to debut at the Mix conference some new hosted services, frameworks, protocols, and tools, as well as a Windows Live Quick Applications update, including a Windows Live Messenger Library that will let third-party software interoperate with Microsoft's IM network. In addition, Silverlight 2 will be a major highlight at the event.
Stay tuned for Mix coverage this week. Ina Fried and I will be on the scene.
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