April 8, 2008
Wouldn’t you like to run your apps in Google’s data centers?
Well, soon you can. The announcement last night of Google’s App Engine (currently in closed trial) is symbolically important: until now Google has been a vertically integrated company, building one of the world’s most powerful computing networks in order to deliver its own search and other services. Like Amazon before it, Google now says it will make that massive computing resource available to other businesses that want to run their software on its servers and access it as a service over the internet.
Once again, Google has beaten Microsoft to the punch (though to be fair, this is still only a very low-key trial, and what’s being played here is a very long-term game.) Microsoft has promised to reveal more about its own “cloud computing” platform this year, with much expected at an October developers’ conference in Los Angeles.
This is shaping up to be yet another fascinating face-off between the leading internet and software companies. Microsoft is a platform company in its DNA and has a massive following among developers, but it has less experience of delivering high-volume services over the internet. Google has unparalleled brains and brawn in running internet services, but it is still at the early stages in winning over developers (a sign of its growing influence will come at a big developer conference in San Francisco next month.)
Ultimately, much will come down to trust. The mantra of IT professionals used to be, noone ever got fired for buying from IBM. Maybe, one day, Google or Microsoft will step into those shoes.
