Commodification of the desktop operating system complete

OS X in Windows 7 in Chrome OS on Cr-48

So I read a great post the other day about the commodification of the client operating system. I surprisingly agree with the author. I think that's the way we're headed.

In Amazon style, Amazon would like us to get our commodities from Amazon. Several months ago Amazon released Amazon Workspaces.

Amazon WorkSpaces is a fully managed desktop computing service in the cloud. Amazon WorkSpaces allows customers to easily provision cloud-based desktops that allow end-users to access the documents, applications and resources they need with the device of their choice, including laptops, iPad, Kindle Fire, or Android tablets. With a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, customers can provision a high-quality desktop experience for any number of users at a cost that is highly competitive with traditional desktops and half the cost of most virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions. 

Pretty cool really. Cloud-based desktops were really unheard of before Amazon's release of Workspaces. Virtual desktops? Sure and they're terrible. Hosted desktops? Sure, and they're even worse. True cloud-based desktops before Amazon Workspaces? Nope.

With Workspaces a small business could have always up to date, always secure Windows computers at their beckon call. The device being used by the end user can be a system like Chrome OS which you can't really break. Starting Chrome OS up from scratch takes a few minutes at most.

Around the world today millions of hours will be spent messing with operating systems. Large corporations have entire teams dedicated to desktop support. Our idea of the operating system will soon be a distant memory, no more special or important than the black pen that runs out of ink, quickly interchanged with another without a second thought.

Deep Thoughts... on Chrome OS

I've been testing Google Chrome OS now for about 2 months. Chrome OS is a new Linux-based operating system based on the open source Chromium project. The goal of Chrome OS is to deliver the web to the user as fast and easily as possible. 

Anyone who has spent anytime in technology knows, without question, that a vast majority of people are not "computer people",  never will be and could care less how things work - just as long as they do.

There are many opinions regarding Chrome OS but one fact is clear. Chrome OS is the world's simplest operating system. If you can browse on the Chrome browser, you're already a Chrome OS power user. For a Chrome browser user, any Chrome OS device is ready to go as "their device" in about 10 seconds. Anyone installed a new version of Office lately? How about upgrade a Vista device to Windows 7? How long did that take? An hour? Two, four, five, overnight? That's not even to make it "your device", that's just to make it capable of becoming your device.

In my work with Umzuzu I have access to multiple Chrome OS devices so I get to enjoy the potential enabled by the simplicity of Chrome OS first hand.

Writing this post actually provided a perfect example. I was working on a Chrome OS device from the comfort of my couch. The devices' batteries last for about a day's worth of work so I don't think of plugging them in that often. The particular device I was using prompted me with a low battery warning. "Darn," I thought, "I'm super comfortable and really don't feel like being tethered right now." ... because I would no longer be laying down. Then I noticed the other Chrome OS device within arms reach. Nice! This is a brand new device.

Turn it on, prompted with login, enter Google username and password, done. Not even 10 seconds. What did I get?

• My extensions ... stuff like Pandora, Bit.ly, Blogger, Picnik, Chrome to Phone, Hootsuite, Google Voice, Google Translate
• My bookmarks ... you can use your imagination here.
• My Apps ... Gmail, Google Apps, Salesforce.com, Box.net, Squarespace, Freshbooks, Blogger, Google Voice, Instant Messaging for 2 work accounts and 1 personal account, 5 calendars - work and personal, Picnik, Linkedin, Facebook, Hootsuite ... you know, the Internet. 

I have more and can do more on this brand new Chrome OS device in 10 seconds than most people even realize is possible or exists. What does this mean? This means Windows 7 is bloated. It's a waste of money and more importantly a waste of time, especially at scale. A retail copy of Office can cost almost $300 ... it is possible when Chrome OS devices hit the market some could cost less than Office.

Cloud computing is not a TV commercial. The cloud is the complete commodification of the client operating system. The browser is already the most used and useful application on a computer. The browser serves the Internet, in the Internet we find the Cloud, the Cloud is powered by millions of computers ... we can choose to use the power of 1 computer or we can choose to use the power of thousands of computers.

Larry Page, Google's CEO, is the son of a late computer scientist and computer science professor at Michigan State. Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. The point of Chrome OS is not to enable the potential of 1 computer - it is to enable the potential of thousands of computers. If you think Google is not going to follow through on Chrome OS, you're nuts.

As my friend Leo says, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."  I'll bet Larry Page knows Leo too. 

"Every computer has a browser" ... yes, and every human has a heart but if 70% of everything else is bloat you're hardly running at optimal performance. Chrome OS is fit and it stays fit - starting every time from a clean version, called Verified Boot.

5 years ago we didn't have iPhone, 3 years ago we didn't have Android, 1 year ago we didn't have iPad ... the pace of innovation and change in technology is accelerating. The thought that Apple would one day be worth more than Microsoft once seemed crazy. Today's its worth $100,000,000,000 more. Google will pass Microsoft by the middle of this year and IBM will pass them by the end of the year.

NOWHERE in technology is more stale than the desktop. They range from the rare "sweet Mac" to the more common "oh my god, you work on this everyday? I'd f'ing kill myself. You know computers aren't supposed to work like this, right?" We will see massive changes here in the next 5 years. Chrome OS will catch Windows in the next 5 years. Mac sales will continue to soar at triple digit paces, 300%+ in the enterprise, as well and will play a much more significant role in the Enterprise.

The Internet is the most disruptive innovation in human history. To think it will continue to influence every aspect of society and business and yet our soon to be secondary point of access will keep its form of the pre-Internet era is insane. Today the Web rules.

"Will Google CEO shift undermine enterprise efforts?"

This post was written in response to an article of the same title. 

There is a general misunderstanding of Google's current role in the Enterprise. First and foremost, the company already has thousands of Enterprise clients. Including Microsoft and each of the Fortune 10. I don't know what each of these companies spend but Microsoft alone likely spends at least several hundred thousand dollars every month. All of these companies are paying to leverage a SaaS application. Just about every publicly well known Enterprise is already a Google customer. A majority of State Governments are also Google customers. Larry's Enterprise experience is being underestimated.

This is also important to note because Google Apps has much more in common with AdWords and Google.com than it does Office or Exchange Server. Google.com and Adwords run on MapReduce, BigTable, and Google File System - in 2010 Google made massive investments in infrastructure to support these systems. Google.com and Adwords are not the only SaaS applications that run on these systems. Google Apps also runs on MapReduce, BigTable and Google File System. This is the benefit of having an actual cloud computing infrastructure rather than just television commercials.

Google's investments in its core business and systems are also investments in Google Apps. This is how an Enterprise business, while small compared to those with 30 year head starts (duh), can be run profitably. Google Apps profit margins may not rival those of AdWords but they can contribute nicely to the bottom line. Schmidt is not the only Googler with an Enterprise background. You can't help but run into folks formerly of Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and other "Enterprise-centric" firms. Google Apps already leads the market for hosted messaging at the University level - this is no fluke. (Nor is it because it's free, MSFT's offering is free as well) The next generation of leaders work on the Internet by default, they have no tie to, or thought of, the desktop for broadly adopted applications (i.e. email). Google itself has this culture as do more and more firms everyday. Google Apps and Android go hand in hand - Google Apps is as mobile as Google.com. Google also spent two thirds of a Billion dollars on Postini which has an impressive client list of its own and has been deeply integrated into the Google Apps suite. DocVerse was acquired last year for $25,000,000 and is explicitly designed to integrate Office with Apps. Who was DocVerse? Basically some of the same guys who helped build Windows, Office, SharePoint and SQL Server. Google's first acquisition in 2001 became part of Google Groups - a core component of the Apps suite. Google Apps' Video application is a private YouTube. Apps is not some side project - it is connected to every part of the firm. Another HUGE elephant in the room is consumerization. Everyday another consumer discovers what they can do with Google Apps. They got to pick their phone, what else can they bring to work to make their lives easier? Outlook on the iPad, no dice. Gmail on the iPad, no problem. Excel on that new Mac/iPhone/iPad? Pain in the ass. Google Spreadsheets? Easy as Google.com.

Google Apps makes the world a better place. Google Apps' core is the Web. Google Apps is a global SaaS application. Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Google Apps is not out of Google's wheelhouse - it's right down the middle. Mr. Page knows this better than anyone. Break it off to make investors happy? The founders implicitly stated in their IPO they would often make decisions for the long term and/or that may seem strange risks to investors. To the world that runs on Microsoft, Google Apps may look strange. To the college students using Google Apps, Outlook is something their dad uses. Young business owners of today and tomorrow don't buy Exchange Server (nor did it ever cross their mind) - because that would just be strange. We have the Web now. We have Google Apps. It may take a decade for the change to be fully realized but Google Apps is Google's mission. This is all very obvious.

Mac attack in the Enterprise!

I've been thinking a lot about the role of Macs in the Enterprise lately. In fact, I've been thinking about it since I made the switch to Apple about 4 years ago. At the time I was working with Microsoft, it was not a popular device when we were in their offices. I actually fastened a Dell logo to put over the Apple the first time I brought it over there. After the third or fourth, "that's the nicest Dell I've ever seen comment" I just couldn't take it anymore and let everyone in on the secret. I hoped they'd cut me some slack since I was still running Windows and Office (first with Parallels and later with VMware Fusion, you can also use Bootcamp which is included free but doesn't let you run both operating systems at once) and they did let me off easy although I never let it out of my site in hostile territory. They all ran IBM machines so I'm not sure how that's all that better.

Macs have long been the popular choice for creatives, firms that focus on things like graphics and videos, but are a small percentage of overall PC's in the Enterprise. This is changing and changing fast. For the past few years Apple has been growing by double and sometimes triple digits across major verticals, the fastest growth has been in the largest businesses. 2010 was a huge year for Macs as illustrated by an IDC report from the second quarter.

What's changing that's driving this "bring your Mac to work day" movement?

I think it's primarily being driven by the forces of Consumerization. Turns out a device that is awesome at home, is also awesome at the office. These are the same forces that have made the iPhone such a force in the Enterprise. Computing is a personal experience and every day people are becoming more confident and vocal about their options and preferences. Confidence is critical. The Marketing Director didn't need IT to tell her how to use her iPhone - she was going to use it with or without them. A person insecure about their knowledge does what they're told, "here's your Dell D6whatever and your BlackBerry". Once someone gets a taste of the other options and KNOWS what they prefer, the BlackBerry doesn't cut it anymore. Many people in modern knowledge-based economies spend more time on their computer than any other device. If we should get to make a personal choice about anything we work with on a daily basis, this should be one. Quality of the experience is huge. It's a phone, who cares? A computer is a computer. No, it's not a phone - it's a phone I spend more time with than my family. It's a computer I'm with almost every day and do everything on. Apple has had a laser focus on the quality of that experience - that 1 on 1 relationship - for the entirety of Steve Jobs tenure. Quality is directly connected to the level of effort required to make the relationship work. Specifically, quality and level of effort share an inverse relationship. This relationship is easiest to experience when we work on an outdated process, tool or device and inevitably say "I can't believe I used to do it this way". The exercise is more difficult when we're comparing two "modern" options. We perceive, often correctly, that the differences in quality vary mostly by personal preference. However, in some instances we confuse preference with familiarity. It's human nature. Regardless this quality of experience is discovered and becomes the preference to more and more people. These people are officially converts, they're not going back and they're passionate about the decision they've made because they never want "to do it that other way" ever again. Once they've found this quality of experience, they demand it everywhere.


Soon Apple will announce numbers for this holiday season. What will they say? Obviously I don't know specifics but I do know they'll say this: "Apple had its best quarter in company history. We sold tons of iPads, tons of iPhones, tons of Macs and tons of iPods." Consumerization is a tremendously powerful force that's really just getting started in the Enterprise, so too is Apple. Macs will see huge growth again across all verticals in 2011. Apple is currently the world's 2nd most valuable company, dependent on oil prices it could take the #1 spot - one more sign of our transition from the Industrial to Information Age.

Microsoft Online vs Google Apps for Businesses

Microsoft and Google are both professionally run businesses that have earned a great deal of respect from their customers. Both firms offer online services.

I was working with a Microsoft partner when Microsoft rolled out their Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). The horrible name was actually meant to be only an internal reference but I guess it took on a life of its own and stuck, they're changing the name to Office 365 for the next version (which will run on the 2010 server products). I was with a SI partner, the SI stands for System Integrator. Our job was to come in after or before Microsoft sold a big licensing contract and wire the jigsaw puzzle of software and hardware together to create or prove out a business solution.

When we came across our first SharePoint 2007 project we didn't have any folks who had actually worked with the solution yet as it was brand new, the local Microsoft office didn't have anyone either and the online documentation was all marketing fluff. I was determined we would figure it out so I drove to the book store and bought Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Administrator's Companion by Bill English. We put together and delivered a proposal. I had mixed feelings when we won the project but was assured we could deliver by folks who had worked with SharePoint since its original launch circa 2001 - we couldn't. After being politely reprimanded by the CIO (I thought it was polite but I used to sell car insurance to people with car insurance at Enterprise Rent-a-Car so my anger meter is probably skewed) we were given a second chance, the billings to date would be credited. As our lack of resources became more acutely obvious, suggestions on how to solve the problem quickly dried up. What to do? Well, somebody wrote the book so I called Bill English, the author, and long story short we subcontracted an employee from his consulting firm, Mindsharp. The resource would be expensive so our margins wouldn't be very good but I was glad we'd be able to deliver on our commitment and didn't mind the criticism around revenue and failure to utilize internal resources.

"That's a boring story. What's your point?" My point is I was very, very excited for BPOS. Why? Because BPOS reduces the number of variables that require management in order to deliver a solution to business users. Let's stick with our SharePoint example. SharePoint requires Windows Server, SQL Server, Web Front End(s), and you have to figure out how to scale (scale to what? time for capacity planning), what about failover, what type of hardware do we have/need, are we going to virtualize, which parts, ad nauseam ... ALL that stuff and we haven't done anything with actual business requirements. This is why SharePoint projects take months, can cost hundreds of thousands, typically have to be redone and develop a love/hate relationship with actual users. Admin is a full time job, customizations require a small army ... for the customer this is wasteful and aggravating; for Microsoft, System Integrators, Hardware Vendors, and Large Account Resellers this is how you generate billions of dollars in revenue and make fat commission checks. Failure? Oh well, the software's sold and they paid their consulting bill, what's in the pipeline?

Enter BPOS. No hardware or software required, no SQL Server, no Windows Server, no load balancing, no failover, no WFE, no capacity planning, the licensing costs were determined by a couple of factors instead of a dozen chimpanzees randomly throwing darts at numbers (seriously, people always ask how they figure out licensing costs, that's it, secret's out), search was built in, etc. Apply this same reality across Exchange and Communications Server and we are talking about some serious value. 5x more functionality could be delivered to the business at a fraction of the current cost.

Three things happened after that. I started learning more about BPOS, about Microsoft's approach to their new online services, and about Google Apps.

What about BPOS? It was built on the server products and large clients would just be hosted single-tenant environments, called "Dedicated BPOS". I'm no genius but that didn't sound like cloud computing to me. The Office products wouldn't have web apps at all, they'd be run via on-premise SharePoint ... if they have on-premise SharePoint they wouldn't have BPOS. Online Communications Server actually requires on-premise Communications Server - what? Live Meeting would still suck. Seriously, Live Meeting blows. Simple pricing quickly became more and more convoluted. This type of user, that type of user, this combination of services, this goes with that on-premise agreement, etc.

What about Microsoft's approach? The last thing anyone at Microsoft wanted to talk about or pitch to customers was BPOS. It was a last resort if they couldn't talk them into anything else. They had Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Exchange 2010, and SQL Server 2010 software to sell. Still do. Ballmer sells to analysts and Wall Street, everyone else sells software.

What about Google Apps? I had been a Gmail user for a year or so. The first time I used video chat I was sold. I didn't have to install anything. Search, oh search, I so take it for granted now. I fell in love with Gmail and started checking out the rest of the suite. The first time you're editing a spreadsheet at the same time as another team member you never want to see a xls or xlsx file format ever again. I remember being taken aback by Google Sites, anyone, and I mean anyone, can create a team site or intranet site and share videos, documents, calendars, presentations, reports etc. That's awesome! Google Calendar has been my favorite Calendar app since the first time I used it, I still don't know what it is that I like so much. It was Gmail and Google Calendar that ruined Outlook for me. I don't need feature 1,274 - I need to find the f@#king email and I need to find it on my phone, at home, at a friends house. How many different menu items can you have? No one on planet earth knows what every menu item on Outlook does. In Gmail I can create rules and filters in seconds, my Inbox is never too full ... not to mention my full chat app is always with me and my chats are searchable. My full calendar and all my docs are also always with me as well - and searchable. It's so easy. Then I learn Google has a business flavor of this suite called Google Apps they're selling. Everything is included, it's all web-based, there's no software, there's no hardware and it works on any computer, and it costs $50/user per year. Talk about reducing variables while delivering more services to business users. 100x more functionality could be delivered to the business at a fraction of the current cost.

Ultimately the reality was clear. The Google Apps suite crushed Microsoft's online offerings. There was no race, it had been over for years. The "competition" from Microsoft was marketing slicks and overpaid suits. BPOS will win many customers but lots of people watch Two and Half Men, that doesn't mean it's a good idea or smart use of resources.

The duty of the IT executive is to the business mission of the firm. The objective should be to enable the business with as many technology services as possible in as efficient manner as possible.

It's not possible to take an objective look at both platforms and determine that Microsoft provides a better value to the firm. Objectivity, however, is a rare quality. Ultimately value is driven by economics, which is coldly objective, and seemingly overnight Google Apps will have become the status quo.

Basically, what's included in each suite is below.

Microsoft Online
Exchange (email/calendar server)
spam/virus protection
SharePoint - intranet/extranet portals, doc share, collaboration
Communications - Instant Messaging, presence, voice/video chat
Live Meeting - web conferencing

*requirements
purchase of Microsoft Office for Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
min. of 5 users
purchase/implementation of on-premise Office Communicator 2007 R2
Office Web Apps for Businesses can only be run on-premise with SharePoint Server 2010

Google
Gmail (web app and email server)
spam/virus protection
Calendar - individual work and personal, team, shared, resource, public
Docs - Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentation, Forms, Drawings
Talk - IM, presence, voice/video chat, telephone calling/texting
Groups - create and manage groups
Sites - intranet/extranet portals, doc share, collaboration
Video - secure internal video sharing (think private YouTube)
Moderator - collect and prioritize questions/opinions from employees
Blogger - blogging platform
AdWords - Advertising platform
Voice - phone/web app providing call routing, voicemail, transcription, archiving, etc.
Picasa - online web albums
Analytics - website analytics
Alerts - custom email alerts by topic
...literally dozens more.

*requirements
a willingness to learn, change, and lead.

Cloud Computing isn't complicated - unless you're a traditional vendor

Businesses of all shapes, sizes and purpose are migrating by the millions to cloud computing solutions like Google Apps. Their reasons are not complicated - easy to use, full featured, reliable, flexible, empowering and inexpensive. 

One not need be technical to understand cloud computing. Google.com, Amazon, eBay, Google Maps, MapQuest, Craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, et cetera. Do you need to be technical to use Google.com to find the information you're looking for, Amazon to buy a 47 inch LG flatscreen, or Facebook to look at pictures of your sister's kids? Nope. Unlimited cloud computing resources are at your disposal 24x7.

Google Apps has more in common with Google.com than Exchange Server or SharePoint and this presents a problem for traditional software vendors. When selling software to businesses, complexity and pricing have a direct relationship. Basically the software vendor is incented to dream up and manufacture increasingly complex (or that which is perceived to be complex) "solutions" which customers then purchase - again and again. This has rendered software an extremely profitable industry - nearly a quarter of the world's 20 richest people are from Microsoft and Oracle. As with any large industry a self-perpetuating ecosystem has formed around the on-premise software giants - most commonly system integrators, independent software vendors, value added resellers, large account resellers, and training firms. Trillions of dollars spent and yet IT in the enterprise is years behind consumer technologies and millions of American small business owners are still handing out business cards with @aol.com email addresses - the current IT paradigm is working great for vendors but at the expense of customers.

On-premise vendors have been sitting pretty for some time. Imagine - you are able to sell a product over and over again yet it costs you next to nothing to duplicate, you're not responsible for getting the product to work yet make 90% profit margins on maintenance and support, you collect large upfront payments AND charge annual fees. This business model created our world's richest man. In this paradigm the vendor holds nearly all of the leverage. Cloud computing upsets this balance of power. 

Cloud computing is a service rather than a product. This is an important distinction. 

When a consumer purchases a product it is inferred they have done their due diligence - they may have buyers' remorse but at the end of the day the burden is theirs to bear. The vendor already has the cash in hand. Along with the software, the customer has also purchased hardware and other required products making them that much more invested - at this point, for better or worse, they either move forward or the decision makers look for other jobs. The burden of producing value is on the customer even though it was the vendor who received payment. Ultimately, a majority of IT projects fail, resulting in an enormous waste of precious capital. The system is prone to failure and on-premise vendors do not have an economic incentive to change the status quo. 

Providing IT as a Service changes the game completely. The economic interests of the vendor and customer are better aligned. The burden of producing value is on the vendor - where it should be as they're the firm being paid. This value must be proven on an on-going basis since the vendor must continuously prove themselves to the customer. The vendor becomes responsible for system performance, security, reliability, upgrades - ALL the work it takes to provide a transparent, high quality service. 

Detractors have a million different technical "concerns" about cloud computing but another million dollars on the bottom line will always speak louder. Cloud computing may not be for every vendor, but it is for every customer.