Beyond Web 2.0

Charles Cooper (whom I used to write a column for in another lifetime) has written a superb column on where the Web is going (and where the companies who build Web-based applications might land in a tough economy).  That's well worth reading, but the real reason why you won't want to miss this gem is his timeline on Web 1.0 versus 2.0, versus where we are now (which he calls Web 2.5) versus where we might go next and when.

I've written about what Coop calls Web 2.5 before, the notion of Platforms on the Web, and we have just now reached their moment, with platforms breaking out all over.  Of course, not all of them are entirely ready -- and some people who announce platforms will be too small to be able to support the broad, deep-pocket activities a platform requires.  But here we go:

• Amazon's E3 is well on its way.
• Google has its Cloud albeit less for business and more for consumers (more about that in a moment.
• IBM has its Blue Computing, HW to support giant cloud, and it has long supported cloud computing through its ISV-partnering activites.
• Microsoft is moving to Live Mesh (again, more about consumers for now) and has some cloud activities for its business applications.  (I promise a piece on Live Mesh shortly -- it's in the works.)
• SalesForce, of course, may be the grandfather of the platform notion.
• Smaller companies like OpSource offer platforms of their own.

Our blue skies will be filled with clouds, so that anyone -- consumer, small business, or business activity in a larger business of any size will be able to avoid the capital, skill, and time costs of implementing software internally, and simply reach out to an appropriate cloud for instant (or nearly instant) gratification.

Of course, we have much to do.  We are at the beginning of this idea, not in the middle when everything has been decided and everything works smoothly.  Some things have to be thought through:

1. Will there be separate platforms/clouds for business and consumer computing?  Do there need to be?  (Hint:  Amazon manages to sell a single paperback book to a consumer while accepting an order for thousands of dollars worth of office provisions from a business, using vastly different rules, as required.)
2. Will you want to use one cloud for everything or will  business be willing to buy its applications from many different clouds and either provide a coordination function itself  (perhaps through a portal) or will businesses demand that its cloud provide the coordination function?  (It's also possible that coordination could be a third-party function, with billing, service, etc., being handled by someone other than the platforms, allowing the offerings of smaller platforms to be succsessfully integrated with big ones.
3. How will new applications enter the market?  Will choosing the right cloud partner become  critical or will standards allow them to ally with multiple platforms?
4. How much of this infrastructure will be visible to users and how much of it can be masked behind an easy-to-use interface such as a catalog?
5. Will software vendors understand that they have to modify their pricing to live in the cloud?  No one is going to buy a full license to something that they want to use a small part of for a single time -- or at rare intervals.

All of this will give us lots to ponder.  In the meantime, consider Charles Cooper's article.  I especially want to consider his Web 3.0 scenario -- both what it might contain and when it might occur.

Comments

[M L]

Applications will enter the market through ecosystems or SaaS marketplaces such as morphexchange.com.