Amazon Web Services: $1B in stateless computing revenue, "less than 10% of its eventual size" -- NYT

Active in Cloud, Amazon Reshapes Computing - NYTimes.com:

When an AWS customer speculated on the price of a server--which he never has to buy thanks to Amazon's servers in the cloud--he said, "for me, that would be like knowing what the price of a sword is."

This is an excellent article from the New York Times.  The success of Amazon's effort highlights three important Big Ideas:

• Abstract complexity
  If you can't eliminate the complex, manage it so the part that is consumed appears simple.  AWS abstracts the entire data center so well, end users neither know nor care how it happened.  Don't Know, Don't Care (DKDC) is one of the biggest enablers of:
  
• the Service Oriented Enterprise
  Up to now, buying, configuring and managing servers and the place they live was like a piece of a very elaborate jigsaw puzzle.  It had many edges and only fit together in one way with other similarly elaborate pieces.  AWS is like Lego blocks: standard and predictable. It can be assembled in millions of ways. When the elements of business processes are decomposed into reusable component parts, it's the difference between a Lego store and the impossibly jumbled Room of Requirement in the Harry Potter stories.
  
• Decouple data, applications, and machines
  Remember, cloud computing, for all its (mostly justified) hype, is only one part of the stateless future.  AWS represents the impact of stateless processing power at the top level; imagine the same impact propagated across personal and mobile computing, user data, and the applications in your enterprise, and you begin to see the true promise of the stateless future. 

New tech research models: threat to Gartner and Forrester, opportunity for you?

Business models, the realities of making money by selling goods or services, change.

• You don't see many Tower Records stores any more, do you?  The retail music business model changed with digital distribution, and stores selling CDs were cut out of the picture. 
• How long has it been since you made a phone call from a pay phone?  Mobile technology ruined that business model.
• Remember the original AOL?  Pay us for your ability to get online, and we'll offer internet access along with our packaged services?  I do, but just barely; the original AOL for Windows did not even have a browser.  But you weren't supposed to need one, AOL provided everything.  

Could the big research company business model
be headed for a similar fate?

Research about technology has a business model too.  There are many variations, but one of the most common models is to pay for an annual contract with a large research company--typically Gartner, Forrester, or IDC--with the expectation that their size will get you most of the knowledge you need to make better choices.  To make sure you're really covered, many companies buy a portfolio of more than one of those contracts.   But in general, it's the original AOL idea applied to research.  

I've written about the business of research, and as you may remember, buying those portfolios was part of my career for many years.  In my opinion, some of the same trends I cover--mobility, social networks, the "freemium" model--are triggers that imply a threat to the "big research" business model.  Even if not, remember your old standby, the SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats?)  If changes in access to business tech research represent a threat to the big companies, they may also give your own enterprise an opportunity to get a broader range of information, at much lower cost, and with far better decision-making impact.  

In the past few months, I've been talking to former leaders from big research about this idea, and about the future of the business.  In articles to come, we'll hear what it's like to set off on your own as an expert, and how that business model can succeed.  We'll talk about social means of gaining business and tech expertise, how to move from a one-to-many model (such as Gartner/Forrester) to a many-to-many model, as exemplified by specialized individual consultants.  

And I'll report about an emerging trend: the growth of tech information requests coming directly from the business, not the IT department.  The last point is significant; it's another way in which the consumerization of business threatens to disintermediate the IT department, thereby threatening the business model of IT itself.  It's pure Era of You effect in action.

The first of the three-part series on new research models:
My, how you've changed: Technology research meets Social, Consumerization, Freemium

This article is part of Infrics.com ongoing coverage of the business of research:

The Business of Research: map higher value, make smarter choices

Evaluating Research Companies: Gartner, Forrester, and IDC

Tech Research Without Spending Big Bucks: four information streams for business

How are you handling research within your own organization?  Do you feel that big research contracts are a good investment?  Are you turning more to blogs and direct contact with subject matter experts?  I'd like to include your experiences in this series.  Let me hear from you. 

AOL sign in screen image: http://blog.boxedart.com/nostalgia/10-websites-and-services-we-loved-in-the-90s/

"A Chromebook needs no care and feeding:" Michael Horowitz

Wake up and smell the Chrome | Computerworld Blogs:

Since I advocate stateless computing--the decoupling of data, applications, and devices--it stands to reason I think that Google's ChromeOS is a breakthrough.  I've used a Chromebook for 14 months, only booting up my Windows laptop once a week or so; I Skype on it, and yesterday I needed to rip a CD so that I could upload it to cloud storage.

This is an excellent post from Computerworld's Michael Horowitz, comparing the experience of keeping a ChromeOS machine up to date (no action ever needed) with another expert's routine to achieve the same thing with a fat operating system.  Here is the money quote:

Yes, a Chromebook is less functional than a laptop running Windows, OS X or Linux. But, it requires no maintenance. Let me say that again: no maintenance. Try and let that sink in, if not for yourself (this is Computerworld after all), then for the non-techies you know. A Chromebook needs no care and feeding. 

I believe that ChromeOS will continue to improve functionality much more quickly than any legacy OS will get rid of updates, scans for malware and viruses, and the need to back up data.

'via Blog this'