Cloud Computing
Gehry versus Wright Part 3 — Building Ecosystems in the Cloud
Jul 5th
Bill Loumpouridis
New technologies have enabled breakthrough designs in construction that have allowed the whimsical musings of an architect like Frank Gehry to be turned into inspiring sweeps of creativity. In the same manner, cloud computing enables entirely new ways of approaching how automated systems are constructed and, more importantly, how these systems interact with one another.
One exciting development that has occurred in parallel with the rise of cloud computing is the advent of “open” systems, which have come to replace the closed architectures that dominated previous technological eras. Open systems allow business applications to freely exchange data using commonly accepted protocols. As the practice of interconnecting systems became more commonplace, the idea of moving past one-to-one connections to interdependent networked computing took hold.
These open-systems capabilities are what allow various “clouds” to coexist and form ecosystems. This is how eBay has created an ecosystem around its auction platform, leveraging PayPal and other payment transaction gateways. Amazon and Google “rent” their cloud to other application vendors, forming additional ecosystems. Facebook, Foursquare and Zynga all share interdependent fates in the “social cloud.”
Even hardware companies depend on open-systems capabilities. Nokia’s new CEO was recently quoted as saying that the key to the company’s survival was to either create a new ecosystem or join an existing one.
The ecosystem that Apple has been able to construct resembles a city comprised of Frank Gehry buildings – each of them unique, yet sharing a common aesthetic. Of course, the overarching unifying principle of the Apple ecosystem is really a matter of form following function – the triumph of the user experience as the ultimate arbiter of mass acceptance. Frank Lloyd Wright would have been proud.
As with many emerging technology trends, we are only scratching the potential of cloud computing. Ultimately, my belief is that the most powerful way to leverage this technology centers on the ability it gives us to form new ecosystems quickly and easily. Those who will prosper will have both the vision of Frank Gehry and the courage, tenacity and bold execution of Frank Lloyd Wright. Cloud computing delivers the “right” balance of technology enablement, timing and execution to create the ecosystems of the future.
Gehry vs. Wright Part Two – What Does Architecture Represent?
Feb 23rd
Bill Loumpouridis
Semantics play a powerful and important role in our projects. The terms “portal,” “customer relationship management (CRM)” and even “customer” (versus end-user or channel partner) can have widely divergent meanings. Thus, every new project requires an early level-set on definitions for these and other relativistic terms.
Cloud platforms : Force.com v/s Google app engine v/s Amazon
Jan 5th
Whenever I read about the future and current trends in technology, the word “cloud” is always there. Being a cloud computing and SaaS consultant I tried to compare the top three well known platforms on the basis of the top two critical issues which may be considered by an IT manager working to carry out a pilot application project in the “Cloud”. More >
Our heads are in the cloud: Dreamforce 2010
Dec 21st
Salesforce.com’s annual Dreamforce conference was held in San Francisco the week of December 6-9, 2010. EDL, a gold sponsor for the second year. The booth included contortionists dressed in cloud morph suits which drew continuous large crowds. At the booth, EDL representatives were discucssing and demonstrating the new CloudCraze 2.0 and Service Cloud 2 integration for prospective customers. We attracted many conference attendees to our booth and had the opportunity to “WOW”them with our eCommerce and customer service offerings.
The energy of the event was immense and intense and the convention center was packed with both current salesforce.com customers and prospects who were eager to learn more about taking full advantage of their CRM system and learning about the power of saleforce.com’s Force.com development platform. The attendees at this conference were truly eager to learn all that there was to know about salesforce.com and cloud computing. While talking to and observing many of the attendees, I found that there were basically two types of attendees at this event:
Group A: This group represents the customers who view saleforce.com solely as a CRM system, with their company utilizing it strictly to communicate and manage their customer information. After speaking with numerous customers in this group, I found that many of them still shared a common need – to have visibility between their leads and their sales and support centers.
Group B: These are the customers who truly want understand all that salesforce.com offers and are excitedly looking for what they can “DO next” in terms of applications and sales force optimization.
When people from Group B approached the booth and I would demonstrate CloudCraze 2.0 or Service Cloud 2 integration for them, they were in awe. They truly understood the benefit of having one “repository” for all pertinent aspects for their company from lead generation to order fulfillment and then onto the service center, with the Service Cloud 2 offering. The enterprise-class customers were shocked with the short time required to build, having experienced how long it took to build solutions this robust with an on-premise solution.
As I dive deeper into solution architecture, it is easy to understand why one would want a single portal to control all of a company’s information since the integration of information is often difficult and trying. It is also problematic to maintain so many moving parts, which must all be working together toward a common end goal. It becomes apparent that it is also quite costly and inefficient to train employees on so many different platforms.
Another common theme that I noticed as I began to truly ponder CloudCraze, EDL Consulting’s eCommerce solution built natively on Force.com, was that many companies which are product companies by nature, were beginning to develop “light” versions of their own product on Force.com as well. However, they were not prepared to take the plunge and holistically develop their product on the platform in its entirety, but instead were developing smaller versions for the AppExchange. What this suggests is customer interest in native Force.com applications. Each company that I spoke with who had developed this lighter version of their product, discussed the road map for their AppExchange product and in essence, how it would/could become as robust as an enterprise-class product.
It seems most logical to me that a consulting company with ten years of deep eCommerce experience be the ones to develop a product to derive the benefits in both development and implementation. The need for natively built applications is continuing to grow and as other eCommerce solutions begin to develop their “shopping carts” into more robust solutions, CloudCraze will continue to develop strategically, remaining ahead of the curve.
Frank Gehry vs. Frank Lloyd Wright – “Frank” talk about Cloud Architecture
Dec 15th
Bill Loumpouridis
Frank Gehry built a reputation for challenging our core beliefs around what buildings should look like and the role of design. His work is often described as “Deconstructivist,” which means he reduces his creations to be more of a reflection of the tension that binds atomic elements vs. the singular “harmonic” whole of a Frank Lloyd Wright conception.
The Importance of Big Ideas
Oct 21st
During the dot-com bubble of the late 90s, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) companies like SAP and JD Edwards were quietly making billions of dollars transforming the way people do work. Long after companies like Ariba and CommerceOne faded into the dustbin of worthless stock options, thousands of users continue to use ERP software to automate tasks that make them more productive. More >
When it comes to security, don’t forget the basics
Sep 21st
Browser technology advances continue to raise the bar on the richness and interactivity of the end user experience. What is often being left behind are the basic security fundamentals. Embarrassing security breaches are occurring on major sites with an increasingly frequent basis. This week Twitter allowed malicious posts that contained links that when rolled over presented the unsuspecting users with content that was unsuitable for most eyes. Recently YouTube plugged a hole in their commenting system where a carefully crafted comment could take a user to any site the commenter desired. Many of those sites were hosting malicious downloads that, when combined with an insufficiently patched system, allowed attackers full access to use that system in any way they desired. More >
Cloud Barbarians at the Gate
Sep 2nd
Bill Loumpouridis
Cloud computing is empowering small business innovators with business tools that can be implemented with extraordinary speed and cost effectiveness. These innovators are now crashing down the gates of their larger competitors with superior customer service, product innovation and business agility. More >
The Cloud Integration Challenge to Software Vendors
Jul 29th
Bill Loumpouridis
While our industry continues to froth over the potential of the cloud, for those of us deploying cloud applications elegantly, surmounting integration challenges continue to be the gauge of our success.
As summer kicks into gear EDL Consulting finds itself in the midst of several large-scale eCommerce initiatives, all of them with varying degrees of cloud-based components (for the purposes of this article, I am purposely using a watered-down definition of “cloud” to include managed services, hosting and platform-as-a-service). What strikes me about these projects as I listen to our clients and deployment teams is the increasing complexity of the integration landscape for deploying these solutions. More >
Google Apps Marketplace a Wake-up Call for Salesforce.com AppExchange
Jul 12th
Bill Loumpouridis
In order for this to happen, what is needed is an integrated application suite – ala NetSuite. An integrated suite of ERP, CRM and eCommerce, along with HR and Financials could change the software world order as we know it and seriously threaten Salesforce.com’s dominance of the cloud. During the first dot com era of the late 90’s, the mantra was “cannibalize yourself before your competitors do it for you”. I doubt they would anytime soon, but if one of the big 4 – Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, SAP – heed this advice things could get very interesting.
According to Google, “the Google Apps Marketplace offers products and services designed for Google users, including installable apps that integrate directly with Google Apps. Installable apps are easy-to-use because they include single sign-on, Google’s universal navigation, and some even include features that integrate with your domain’s data.” As it turns out, as long as your application recognizes Google credentials for single sign-on, you’re in. More >