Increasing Functional Specificity over Increasingly Commoditized Hardware - Guide to Cloud Computing for Business and Technology Managers - page 3

power is turning into a strategic resource or a form of capital. For clouds
to reach their potential, they need to be as easy to program and navigate
as the Web. This suggests growing markets for cloud search and software
tools—a natural business for Google and competitors like Amazon.com. As
this strategy unfolds, people are starting to see Google as poised to become
the dominant force in the next stage of computing. Companies and research
organizations may eventually hand over most of their high-level computing
tasks to a world-spanning network of computers forming a cloud. It is likely
that all sorts of new business models will emerge.
The pioneers in a position to dominate this field are as follows:
1. Google —The only search company built from scratch around hard-
ware, investing more than $2 billion a year in data centers, and the
leader in cloud computing; Salesforce.com is partnering with Google
in a joint venture—Google's cloud is best at sifting through data, but
Salesforce.com has strengths in running business applications like
accounting packages and lets companies write their own programs
to run on its servers.
2. Yah o o !—Smaller and poorer than Google, with software not perfectly
suited to cloud computing, but as the leading patron of Hadoop
(a free software framework that supports distributed applications
running on large clusters of commodity computers processing huge
amounts of data), it could end up with a lead.
3. IBM —Dominant in business computing and traditional supercom-
puters, IBM is teaming up with Google to get a foothold in clouds.
IBM is launching a pilot cloud system for the government of Vietnam
and has built a showcase cloud center in Ireland.
4. Microsoft —Still currently dominated by its proprietary software,
Microsoft is strong on the fundamentals of cloud science and is
building massive data centers in Illinois and Siberia.
5. Amazon —The first to sell cloud computing as a service (Amazon
Web Services); while smaller than rivals, its expertise in this area
could provide a boost for the retailer in the next generation of Web
Services from retail to media.
1.1.1 Drivers for Cloud Computing in Enterprises
1.1.1.1 Business Drivers
At present, companies have to survive and develop competitive advantage
in a dynamic and turbulent environment of global competition and rapid
business change. Companies are under constant pressure to simultane-
ously grow revenue and market share while reducing costs. To meet these
requirements, companies have been changing, and three major trends can