[Cialug] "Going Google"

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Nathan C. Smith <nathan.smith at ipmvs.com> wrote:
> My argument against is fanatical, er financial.
>
> I like to compare it to Novell and Microsoft in the early 90s.  Novell
> Netware was the leader and Microsoft NT had just come on the scene.  There
> was an expensive per-seat licensing scheme for Novell and Microsoft had a
> one license, everybody in licensing scheme.  This got MS into companies and
> made them dominant and pretty much killed Novell even though the NT server
> product at the time was not as stable as Novell.  Now you have to buy
> MS Client Access licenses in addition to server licenses for every client
> that connects.
>
> So right now SaaS and the cloud is cheap but as soon as everyone is on there
> will be rising subscription pricing and endless revenue streams for
> providers.
>
> My advice to anyone getting on, is to make sure they have an exit strategy
> and understand the requirements to get off/out.

For example, using Google's mail service you can use imap to get to
your email. This is good because you can take your data if you dislike
Google.

Google's app engine is a very compelling development platform but if
you develop an app on it (and I've developed a few) you're stuck there
because you have to make use of their APIs and code libraries. You're
stuck unless you use one of the "compatible" knock offs. Even using
django on app engine isn't currently going to solve this issue, though
the nonrel branch of django may get it there.

So eyes wide open is a good strategy. But I think it's ok to go ahead
and look around.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode, skype, linkedin, identi.ca and twitter