Cloud computing platform dominated the war

Now the cloud is the new operating system of the enterprise, and the service is the new application. Clouds offer shelter for the next generation of service mechanisms, from Pinterest to Instagram, from foursquare to AirBnB, all because of the cloud. On this side, Microsoft Windows and MacOSX, which provide the interface for the previous generation of desktop applications, are already in a state of flux (note: this conclusion may be premature because these established operating systems are constantly undergoing metamorphosis) and on the other hand, Suppliers of Amazon classes that serve essential computing, storage and networking have begun to take the stage.

Relative to the previous generation, the cloud is more flexible operating system, higher fault tolerance. These two advantages of the cloud come from its two signature features: virtualization and distributed. Because virtualization, the failed hardware can be upgraded or swapped out, virtual processes can be ported to new machines with little or no impact on the end user. Because of the distributed nature, clouds can be spread across tens of thousands of commoditized devices, service computing and bandwidth requirements are met through flexible scaling, and disk storage limitations are almost counter to the times.

The cloud has also brought new challenges in other ways, and more precisely brings us back to the client-server relationship of the pre-PC era (Note: once again confirming the philosophical principle of spiraling). If the cloud is a more powerful host, then today's clients are smarter than the dumb terminals of the past. The new clients are smartphones, tablets, and more modern web browsers, where the native caching and computing power is the essence of rich, interactive applications. However, managing the state between client and server and across different categories of clients can create complications for developers.

This new century of computing opens up new markets and opportunities. The theme of this battle is: Who will become the standard platform for cloud computing kingdom?

This bet is significant, not only because of the rapid increase in utility calculations. As with previous operating system battles, this is also a life-or-death war, with the battle over the control of applications running on the cloud platform.

Amazon Web Services: The throne is beyond dispute

Amazon's WebServices (AWS) takes the lead. AWS provides a growing set of peripherals such as block storage, load balancing, and content delivery networks over its core ElasticComputeCloud. In 2011, AWS's growth rate of 80%, estimated revenue of nearly 1 billion US dollars, cloud services, the market prospects of how much it can be seen. In a recent meeting with 22 CEOs, I asked how many of them were using AWS: Everyone raised his hand.

Microsoft Azure: Microsoft's double-edged sword

Great desktop subversion is happening. Desktop applications are being replaced one by one by the same cloud services, office, accounting, and even photo editors are so. These services incorporate features inherently supported by server-centric architectures such as cloud, Evernote, social, and real-time collaboration (Zendesk, GoogleApp) across devices.

For the desktop's traditional dominant Microsoft, the cloud platform of course is a threat. But opportunities coexist. From the current dominant desktop to the new cloud frontier, Microsoft also has its strategic leverage. Microsoft can help desktop developers who are already familiar with their programming APIs and operating environments to expand their applications. Similarly, it is relatively easy for Microsoft's customer base to evolve smoothly into cloud services. So, although Microsoft came to the cloud platform with Azure some time later, it has the advantage of condescending. Microsoft's question is how to waving this double-edged sword in order to both kill and self-mutilation.

Google's AppEngine: stalling platform

Google is an early leader in developing App-as-a-Service for consumers, and Google App Suite is the best known.

But Google is slightly less successful in developing its own cloud platform AppEngine for developers. Like an operating system, a cloud platform can succeed if it provides application developers with the right tools.

Compared with Microsoft's Azure and Amazon's WebService, AppEngine's developer tools are more advanced, more Google-oriented, and more restrictive. Only support the selected programming language, backend storage there are restrictions. The result is that AppEngine is less widely accepted by serious developers.

While Google has a strong ability to create its own cloud service, with Android, its presence in the client ecosystem continues to grow, but Google needs a shift if it wants to compete with others on the cloud platform Caixing.

The Strengths of EMC: The Power of Data Trust

EMC is the last big competitive player. Unlike Amazon, Microsoft and Google, the distance between EMC and consumer IT is far away, mainly facing enterprises. The fundamental advantage of EMC is data. Its servers already host the valuable data for some of the world's largest businesses. This is a powerful strategic advantage as data is at the core of the cloud's value and source of its vulnerabilities.

The cloud is essentially a data operating system (like TimO'Reilly's comment on the internet). The value of cloud services lies in connectivity - connected to digital pulses that vibrate throughout the planet via email, social media, business dashboards, and more.

However, the ever-increasing connectivity of data also poses a loophole risk; there will be more and more incidents of consumer privacy violations. For businesses, it's hard to assess the sensitivities of data security. The value of data is unique, irreplaceable corporate assets, the loss can not be measured by money.

EMC has earned the trust of demanding businesses by giving them peace of mind to pass on their data to EMC. EMC can take advantage of this trust. In contrast to Amazon's public cloud, which offers virtual private clouds (VPCs), EMC is smart and realizes that the term "public cloud" is about as good for corporate executives as "public toilets" and "public pools."

Changing circumstances, set time to be

The king of the cloud platform battle is crucial, because this is the same as the other platform battle, the result of this duel is the winner is king, the winner take-all. Once a start-up places its own data on Amazon's S3 storage service, deploying its own Hadoop cluster on Amazon will also be a bargain (lower bandwidth costs) and, like any other Collaboration with service providers at Amazon is also better.

The risk of being locked in a platform has prompted some open source standards for cloud computing, most notably OpenStack, which is already backed by IBM, Rackspace and HP.

Who can become the market hegemony depends on its development momentum, migration costs, security and developer friendliness (API design, standards, documentation) comprehensive contest. Winners will become the next generation of cloud applications and services based on the operating system, and will be very rich material returns.

Whatever the winner, far-sighted companies continue to enjoy the benefits of cloud-based storage, computing and network virtualization while focusing their creativity on top of the technology stack. The result will be a flourishing application-as-a-service start-up that will have a disruptive impact on existing technology companies and the economy as a whole, and good play has just begun.