True story. Amazon’s cloud service disrupted by lightning storm. So many play on words possible, but this is the Google search engine age. Everything is vanilla. How unfortunate.

Very interesting presentations on cloud computing at Seattle Tech Startups tonight.

Jeff Lawson of Twilio gave an en depth presentation on how his company is levering AWS, Rackspace and other providers to bring telephony into the cloud. I was very impressed with their architecture. Honestly, it is better and more scalable than many enterprise architectures. I say this with 15+ years in the enterprise space. Twilio has figured out how to deliver a very robust enterprise class system on Amazon AWS. If others are able to replicate the Twilio model, the cloud will thrive in the enterprise. He offered some insights on cloud advantages. First, the cloud gives you the opportunity to determine the optimal cost performance trade off. Second, the cloud is great for load testing. Third, the cloud is great for the often overlooked failure testing. Given that services can die in the cloud, the uncertainties force better, more redundant design. Twilio is very sensitive to uptime since they are a consumer and provider of cloud services. Jeff ended his presentation with a very funny send up of the most commonly asked questions on the STS forum. Keep your eye on Twilio.

Steve Marx from the Windows Azure team followed. Personally, I have only thought of Azure as a pure cloud application type offering, but in reality Windows Azure will play in the commodity/utility space of the cloud as well in the higher value services of cloud applications. Windows Azure will run a forked version of Windows 2008 Server that has been optimized for the Microsoft virtualization stack and bootup time. Aside from running Windows Server 2008, Azure will be a fairly open system allowing other databases and programming languages. MySQL will be supported as well as other applications that do not require administrative access to the server according to Steve. Impressively, Windows Azure will offer easy scalability and rollback features baked into the “fabric” of the offering. Ease of use could be a compelling point for customers. Look for the Windows Azure SLA and business pricing in November of this year. Steve demonstrated Windows Azure by setting up a web service that used Twilio. Nice touch.

When I leave an event like this and my mind in spinning with the possibilities, it was worthwhile. Tonight was no exception.

Interesting move in the cloud application space yesterday with Google’s announcement of Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook. An often touted problem of the cloud is “lock in”. The enterprise is looking to move beyond proprietary solutions and blend the best for their own competitive advantage. This announcement is the first step to solve that problem. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft responds.

Check the Official Google Enterprise Blog for more details: Use Microsoft Outlook with Google Apps for email, contacts, and calendar.

100th post. That did not take too long.

Good read @ E-Commerce Times by Ed Sullivan Monetizing the Cloud 101: The Proof Is in the Profit. The article rightly points out that the advantage in the cloud is opening up your offering. Third-party developers can then create market-specific products. Apple is specifically mentioned; however, Salesforce.com and even Twitter have thriving developer environments. Force.com has become a required marketplace for a third-party CRM developers. Twitter API has spawned hundreds of applications based on Twitter, although time will tell how Twitter will profit.

Check this article: You Say You Want a Cloud Revolution @ GigaOM. The evolutionary/revolutionary argument can be applied to just about any technology. It is a good reminder for thinking about that next great idea.

Interesting read @ CNet by Ina Fried, Ray Ozzie’s cloud hangs over the Valley.

And yes, it only rains in Seattle. It is never sunny. Ever. You would not want to visit. Especially in July or August. We all grow gills.

Joke: “Why did it take God 7 days to create the Earth?”

Answer: “Because He did not have the install base.”

Google Wave has captured a lot of attention since it’s announcement, but it is not production ready and will likely have a “beta” tag on it for years. And years. Microsoft’s BPOS offering is here today. The name does not exactly roll off the tongue; however, it is in production.

Google and Microsoft will battle over the cloud application space. Google’s challenge will be to penetrate the enterprise. Microsoft already has a huge base of enterprise partners and resellers with established relationships. At the end of the day it will be about value, but it is a lot easier if you are the incumbent. Expect Microsoft to leverage its huge base of enterprise partners and get a big footprint for BPOS.

Solid read on Microsoft’s cloud application services at Tom’s Hardware. Check Microsoft’s BPOS: Cloud Computing’s Silver Lining?.

Site: Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite

Happy Friday to my 2 readers.

The Google Wave preview is worth the time to check out. My take, like many others, is that Google Wave is clearly aimed at Microsoft Sharepoint and Exchange. There are many cloud versions of Sharepoint-like collaboration tools already. As companies get more comfortable with their corporate email, they will be looking for the 1-2 punch offered by Microsoft and now Google. I would expect these two giants to continue to slug it out in the cloud application space. It may be just a matter of time before Google swallows Salesforce.com. If that does in fact happen, the fireworks will fly.

The best concise overview of Google Wave I have found is @ Mashable: Testing Google Wave: This Thing is Tidal

Google Wave: wave.google.com

Update
Another great read on Google Wave and Microsoft @ TechCrunch: The Manhattan Project.

Update 11/23/11
Well Google bombed on this one. Wave never gained traction despite the hype. Development stopped over a year ago and it is officially on life support. The plug will be pulled on April 30, 2012. So long, we hardly knew ya.
The Official Google Blog: More spring cleaning out of season.

Picnik is a great online photo editing tool. It is dead simple. Think Adobe Photoshop Elements on the web. For free. The company is a darling of the Seattle startup scene and has won many recent awards. It works on Flickr, PhotoWorks, Facebook, MySpace, Picasa Web Albums, Photobucket, Webshots, Lexmark and Box.net as well as I few I likely missed.

The company has done 3 very interesting things in the cloud. Picnik is using social media to generate word of mouth, using the utility nature of the cloud for raw computing power and using an API to open its services even further. The company’s has successfully leveraged the Facebook platform and builds great word of mouth. Also Picnik is very active on Twitter. Picnik has taken that next technological step moving a very resource intensive application to the cloud. Photo editing is not easy on the CPU. Think about how long Photoshop takes to load. Lots of number crunching. A great cloud problem to solve. Finally the company has an API and nurtures a development community to build add-on and other Picnik based services. In a nutshell, Picnik is leveraging the cloud better than most. The model is interesting.

Keep an eye on Picnik.

Interesting read over the weekend at NY Times. Plugging In $40 Computers goes into the world of mini-servers about the size of a large DC Charger. With 512 MB Flash, 512 MB RAM, USB and Gigabit Ethernet, these computers have some chops. No video though.

Obvious uses around the house would be file and print servers. It will not be too long before these type of devices are running wi-fi and dedicated applications. Home security, appliance monitoring and digital media management clearly have value. I could see other applications for remote monitoring in hard to reach places such as agriculture, undersea or a volcano as these devices have cell and additional power added.

Another interesting article on the Plug that is referenced in the NY Times article and is worth a look: Hackers Weigh In: 8 Big Things to Do with a Mini Server.

Enterprise applications could include clustering, intelligent scanning and other logistics applications. Need to think on that some more. The size and price point to many of the arguments raised by Nicholas Carr’s Big Switch.

Check PlugComputer.org for the details. Interesting stuff.