Cloud computing and collaboration

Cloud computing is definitely one of those buzzwords that is currently found all over the Internet and the concept has nearly as many definitions as there are people to write about it.  So at the beginning of this post, let me explain what I understand by the concept. I recognize two different concepts behind the term cloud computing.  First, it consists in a number of IT resources that are made available in near real time over the Internet.  These resources can be compute cycles or storage space or combination of those.  Second, a set of services are made available over the Internet and can be orchestrated together by the user to perform a particular functionality.  Software as a service, often referred to as SAAS, is one instance of such services.  However where things really get interesting, is when services on the Internet can be integrated with proprietary services running within the enterprise IT infrastructure.  The two categories described in my mind represent cloud computing. The first category has appeared  a couple years ago and is being proposed by companies like Amazon and others.  What is really interesting from a collaboration perspective is when we will see the second one appearing.  Today there is not really a valuable collaboration offer.

What I am looking for is an environment that allows companies to quickly create business processes using available services, that low them to do the key collaboration activities they require. These go from planning & forecast collaboration, to inventory collaboration, status information sharing, sales & order planning (S&OP), master data management and the management of orders and invoices. What I envisage may happen is that cloud computing is first used to do things that are not done today. This could be hazardous material reporting, CO2 emission reporting or tracking of counterfeiting. What is important in each of those is for companies to make available proprietary information in return of obtaining a grander picture. However, they would like to keep that proprietary information as much as possible under their own control. Cloud computing and its capability to approach distributed data as if it was an integrated database, is ideal for such type of reporting. But we need standards, and standardized ways to approach the data.

If I am looking at Amazon ACS tools, they are proprietary and incompatible with other environments. As such they do not allow applications to address multiple environments in a seamless and transparent way. It’s what limits the current generation of cloud environments. A lot has still to happen for truly integrated and collaborative environments. But its worth looking at what will be needed as this is the only way we will get people looking at how to address our needs.

Where there is a Will, there is a Way

Today I’d like to share an experience which is a little different from the ones I shared up till now on this blog. Indeed, over the Christmas period there was a large religious event in Brussels. It was the international pilgrimage of Taizé, stopping for the year-end in Brussels. 40000 young people from all over Europe and from a variety of Christian religions converged to Brussels for a three day event consisting in prayers, workshops, meetings and being together.  We got involved through our parish as they were looking for households to provide space for the people to sleep. Speaking English, I was asked by my neighbors to serve as a translator, and having some space at home, we welcomed a couple polish people. She spoke some English and he a little German. But we got along quite well.

In pour parish, we welcomed 20 Italians, 20 Serbs (some of which actually turned out to be Slovaks) and 20 Polish people, a couple of which actually came from Ukraine and a couple other countries. A nice melting pot of languages, cultures, religious and historical differences. Reviewing those couple days, it was actually a great success, despite the difficulties in communication. People were constantly speaking in 3 or 4 different languages, with translation from Serb to Slovak to Polish for example.

Experiencing this, I was thinking back on a number of those international meetings I assisted over the years, where professional translators need to be hired, or where people expect you to speak to them in their language or will refuse to listen to you. What was the difference. here we had people from all over Europe coming with the intention to live something together. Silence, songs (and I believe, despite my awful track record in singing, I must have sang in 8 or 10 different languages over those days), and eagerness to learn to know and understand others better made the difference. And, as somebody told me, if the words could not be understood, gestures and drawings did the rest.

I believe we can learn something important from such an event. Where there is a will, there is a way. Indeed, its by being open and eager to understand the other, his/her standpoint that communication can truly take place. But how often are we blocked by feeling we are the customer and the other should adapt to us. How often are we in a one-way street. That’s our problem. So, lets take a lesson from those 40000 youngsters who are the Europe of tomorrow.

Are IT departments pushing collaboration in the cloud

I was intrigued earlier in the week by a comment made by one of my friends who is doing a lot of work in the collaboration and knowledge management area. He told me about the difficulties he had with the IT department and the lack of support he got for the collaboration tools we use. He made the comment “its like if they want to push us to the cloud”. That actually got me thinking. Indeed, IT departments don’t look at collaboration and knowledge management environments as being critical applications, and in times where budgets are down, where resources are reducing, the first things for which support is reduced are these. Does this actually make sense in a business environment where companies are globalizing, travel budgets are reduced and collaboration increasingly becomes important.

As the number of “Generation Y” workers (born between 1975-1995) surpasses the baby boomers, the social networking literacy increases drastically. With the IT departments not providing the appropriate support systems, the tendency is to use the social networking tools instead. Unfortunately in the current circumstances this exposes enterprises to three key issues:

• First, the level of security of most of the on-line collaboration platforms, at least the free ones (the ones most people turn to), have not been audited. This potentially exposes company confidential information to the world and may result in competitors getting hold of key information early
• What happens in the cloud is completely outside the company's control and makes Sarbane-Oxley and Basel 2 compliance difficult to prove
• Third, this now puts key company information in the hands of a third party that might be subpoenaed to release the information to court without the agreement of the owner in case of a court case. Legal departments see this as a nightmare scenario.

In a cover story, titled “Innovation meets Collaboration”, AT&T describes some of the issues related with internet based collaboration, pointing out though that the gap between the companies that take advantage of the internet and the ones who don’t is widening.

As IT budgets reduce and employees look outside the company for tools to collaborate, it is mandatory that a clear approach is taken and that all implications, including security and legal ones, are reviewed prior a decision is made. Many employees today are not aware of the implications and threats caused by moving documents and confidential information to the internet. I do not advocate the status quo, but rather to approach the problem with eyes wide open. Moving forward, companies will have unhappy surprises, just make sure it is not yours.

Collaboration in 2009, who will provide the service?

As the crisis, or recession if you prefer, comes down, companies are cutting costs. Travel is one of the first elements to go as I stated earlier. This leaves room for collaboration tools, environments and best practices. So the question really is who will deliver this?

In his blog, Ross Mayfield refers to a perspective provided by Gil Yehuda from Forrester, refering to IT driven  and bottoms up collaboration, he calls tech populist. He points out that IT departments react by trying to block businesses from getting software services from the cloud as they are difficult to manage. This reminds me about a large company that wanted to use Google Documents earlier this year to share information with suppliers. It sounded real practical and easy, till one of the key directors found one of the companies documents listed in good place in one of his Google searches. That stopped the experiment right there.

So, on the one hand we have IT departments whose budgets are being cut and on the other, users that increasingly will require collaboration tools as they are hindered to travel to partners, suppliers and customers. Are the two really incompatible? Maybe not.

In an earlier entry I mentioned I was starting to look at the brand new Windows Live integrated environment. At the first glance it provides an interesting environment for collaboration, including storage space, calendar, document management (sharepoint in the cloud), instant messaging etc. Although it is new and comes from Microsoft, which gets a number of people angry for no other reason, it is a well rounded environment that can facilitate team collaboration.

Many of the critics point out that Facebook and Myspace provide similar, or for some better, features. That may be so for individual users that want to share photos and videos. What I like in Windows Live its the capability to manage documents, share large files and other similar features.

If Microsoft can demonstrate a good level of security , a reliable environment and integration with some social networking sites like LinkedIn and Plaxo, this environment may be ready for businesses to collaborate. In doing so they would position themselves differently, which could result in a brand new business environment for them. It's really worth monitoring.

Will IT departments allow such collaboration? It's a good question, but as it comes from Microsoft and has a good integration with the existing desktop applications, one may hope so.

On a totally different note, may I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I have enjoyed developing this blog over the last 6 months. I hope it turned out useful for all of you. If I may have one wish, it would be to hear a little more from you. Let's hope for a great 2009, despite all. May the little bird sing, reminding us that spring is getting closer.

Google, Microsoft and the Internet

Today I ran into a couple interesting articles. One in particular spoke about Google's invisibility cloak. Forbes highlights the fact that web researcher net applications recently discovered that between 11 and 30% of traffic streaming out of Google is stripped of its usual identification. In other words the company is unable to make out on which operating system the originating application runs. The article continues by assuming that Google is developing their own operating system to avoid having to rely on Microsoft. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen and only the future will tell. Google was not available for comment, is and that's what they usually say when the information is correct but they are not intending to admit.

This gets me to a question that I have been hounded by for quite awhile. Many people bash Microsoft as the company that wants to concur the world, and name Google as the savior but I increasingly have the impression that Google is doing exactly the same as Microsoft a number of years ago. Secretly they are trying to get hold of every Internet related information that we convey from our computers. It is the secrecy that actually makes it even worse than what Microsoft has been doing. At least Microsoft was predictable.

At this point in time a big battle is starting. On the one side Google has been coming from the Internet and is now trying to take over our desktops and mobiles, while on the other Microsoft has started from our desktops and mobiles and is now, through the launch of there windows live environment, trying to attract us to their own Internet space.

I have to admit that the windows live environment appears to be an interesting one, not in its individual functions, but in the way the functions are integrated. They seem to have done a good job not just of integrating the functions that are running on the Internet, but also the Internet with the desktop. It's worth trying it out.

My belief is that there is place for two competitors in this space, and I really don't know who is going to win. However, what I do not agree with is that the one of them is presented as the devil while the other is the savior. I believe both companies have their own economical strategies and a common objectives to make money. Both are trying to maximize the amount of money they make and consider us as a vehicle to do so.

Unfortunately, as both environments are completely incompatible, to collaborate with others one will have to make a choice. As each of us will end up with its own preference, to avoid turf wars we will all end up requiring identifiers in both emvironments and we will have to learn to use both. But that's the prize of competition I suppose.