iPhone and Cloud Computing

iPhone represents a phenomenal growth in user-generated data, as Joe Tucci alluded to in his EMC World 2008 keynote, when he said that by 2010:

• 70% will come from individual creation
• 85% will become the responsibility of organizations: YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Google

We know that since the advent of the iPhone just over a year ago, Google has experienced a HUGE jump in mobile access to its site, primarily via this device with it’s image-rich Safari Mobile web browser. As Google mobile product manager Matt Waddell said back in March,

“We have very much hit a watershed moment in terms of mobile Internet usage. We are seeing that mobile Internet use is in fact accelerating… as many as 50 times more Web searches” vs. standard, so-called feature phones.

According to data released by M:Metrics, roughly 85% of iPhone users access the mobile Internet and almost 60% perform mobile web search. These numbers are dramatic and outstrip usage on other smart phones as well.

While the iPhone 2.0 firmware upgrade release will increase the appetite for end-user device consumption, including over-the-air downloads, the iPhone 3G will double or triple the data download speed over the first generation iPhone. Greater speed will likely mean greater consumption.

Cellphone tower triangulation has been a feature on the old iPhone as well as other mobile devices, but the new GPS capabilities of the iPhone 3G will mean even greater online data consumption.

The implications on data consumption, and on cloud computing with MobileMe can be significant. Apple used the term “cloud computing” at their announcement at the WWDC in San Francisco. The idea is that any item you change in your Calendar, Contacts, or Email will be near-instantly be changed in the cloud and be updated on your Macintosh (if you have one) or on a web-based tool on your Windows PC.

The service will be MobileMe, the rebranding of Apple’s .Mac service. It will be beefed up in space to 20GB of space and will cost $99/year. For those who already have .Mac, they’ll be automatically upgraded. This secure online server holds the information and pushes the updates to the other locations in seconds. On the Mac it will work with the native applications: iCal, Address Book, and Mail. On the PC it will work with Windows XP or Vista. On the handheld, it will work with the iPhone or iPod Touch. As Apple calls it, “Exchange for the rest of us.”

The PC web-based applications will be available from MobileMe at me.com. There will be mail, contacts, calendar, photo gallery, and iDisk, the online file storage. This is not the first time we’ve seen cloud computing, but it’s the first time we’ve heard Apple discussing it in a product launch. Cloud computing is the popular name for a number of different trends and technologies that involve online computing, data manipulation and storage.

One of the more popular consumer applications of cloud computing is Mozy Backup, which I’ve mentioned before. For about $5 a month, a user can backup an unlimited amount of PC or Mac data “into the cloud” over the Internet. The initial full backup can take some time, but thereafter, it backups just incremental changes at a block level. For those who want “off site” backup, this is ideal… and at much capacity than .Mac/MobileMe offers.

I’ve been asked about the implications of cloud computing.

Question:

Isn’t my data on someone else’s server?

Answer:

Yes, just like your email is at your ISP before you download it (via POP) and as it always is if you use IMAP email.

The trade-off here is the sense of insecurity in having your private data somewhere else (though Mozy encrypts it) compared to the flexibility of being able to access it anywhere that you can connect over the Internet. I gave up POP email years ago for the convenience of being able to collect it on the road, at work, at home, or from a hand held device, using server-side spam filtering and sorting. Another concern is:

Question:

If I can’t get online, won’t I be without  access to my information?

Answer:

Yes, unless it’s synced locally to your hand held (like an iPhone), or unless you have an offline copy. Technologies like Google Gears are making browser based information more persistent when disconnected.

Who knows what the future holds for other more powerful technologies.

Thanks for coming along.

BillPetro.com

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Last week, after an eagerly waited and much speculated upon announcement from Steve Jobs at the World Wide Developer Conference, we finally got the story on the 2.0 version of the iPhone, known as iPhone 3G. While it’s really iPhone 2.0, we get the appearance of a 3.0 product with the new name. The event was a combination of Woodstock love fest, fan boy rally, and reality distortion field generation par excellence. But Steve Jobs announced what most people were expecting, and then some.

In the past, when people have asked me what I have thought about the first generation iPhone, I told them “Excellent as a media device: music, movies, YouTube, email/web browsing are all seamless.” But the flip side was this: as a data device is was sorely lacking. Specifically:

• No 3rd party applications could be (safely) installed

• No data, including Office files, could be transferred to the iPhone for editing

• The PIM (Personal Information Management) tools were immature: Address Book had no searching, Calendar had no colors for sub-calendars, Mail was weak

These will change with the iPhone 3G and the updated iPhone 2.0 software expected on July 11. Here are the highlights:

• Apple’s App Store will permit and distribute 3rd party applications for the phone, in some cases over-the-air

• Integration of Microsoft Office and Apple iWorks documents. (Though we don’t know yet about “editability”)

• PIM upgrades: Address Book will allow searching (though not any “cut & paste” yet?), Calendar will support different  sub-calendars with different colors, Mail will allow push technology from Exchange via ActiveSync.

Game Changers

There are several things both explicit and implicit in the announcement that could change the way people use mobile devices like smart phones. While 3G and GPS are not a new item in cell phones, the combination of a number of elements in the iPhone ecosystem could change the game.

• Location Based Services: while there are other phones with both 3G and GPS, the iPhone holds out the promise of an easy-to-use, high resolution mobile device that can support services that rely on knowing where you are. One was demoed at the announcement, Loopt is a social networking tool that would tell you where your friends are and vice-versa. Adaptive GPS (A-GPS) will take advantage of the closest satellite as well as WiFi and cellphone tower triangulation to identify a users location. Will this serve as the communicator locator from Star Trek: The Next Generation, or introduce a privacy concern?

• 3rd party applications: The Macintosh has some of the most innovative developers, several apps previewed at the announcement could have a profound impact on productivity, enterprise connectivity and gaming. 250,000 iPhone software development kits have been downloaded and an analysts at Piper Jaffray believes it could be the start of a billion dollar ecosystem. The previously existing Web-based-only applications are trivially easy to “install” (use), but can be slow to start up and don’t work without a connection to the Web.

• Enterprise connectivity: Access to the corporate Exchange server, previously only available for  the BlackBerry with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, could have an impact on how corporate users access their email, calendar and contacts. Could they turn their BlackBerry back in?

• Wide availability: Presently, the iPhone is only (legitimately) available in 6 countries. Of course, unlocked versions have appeared everywhere, not tied to the official carrier of the country. When I was in Hong Kong last December, I saw iPhones available many places for sale, despite the fact there is no carrier there. By July 11 this year, it will be available in 22 countries, and 70 are expected by some time next year. Notably missing on the map are China and Russia, but confirmed contracts with carriers there seem to have simply missed the announcement date, work continues apace.

• Cloud computing: Apple plans their own over-the-air updating system, “Exchange for the rest of us” as it were. The rebranded .Mac, aka MobileMe will allow near real time synchronization of email, calendar and contacts between the iPhone, Macintosh, and web-based PCs. More on this in a subsequent article.

TCO vs. ROI?

Although the new iPhone 3G will have a lower initial purchase price of $199 vs. the previous $399 for the 8GB device, the Total Cost of Ownership is measured by the initial cost plus the ongoing monthly service fees over the 2 year commitment to the carrier. Announced by AT&T on the same day as the iPhone 3G, but not as part of the Apple announcement, was the new pricing service for the device. The monthly data plan and SMS plans will cost more, making the device more expensive to own over 2 years by as much as $160. But perhaps the more valuable analysis would be the Return On Investment. The incremental value of being able to pull data down faster over a 3G connection, or the added value of GPS functionality… all add up over a 2 year period and may be compelling enough for a new purchase, or upgrade.

Thanks for coming along.

BillPetro.com

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Q: How can you tell a conference is a technical conference?

A: When the ratio of PDAs to attendee approaches 2 to 1.

The amount of IM, Twitter, SMS, email, and phone calls was amazing. All kinds of devices: iPhones, Qs, Nokias, and of course Blackberries. Lots of people doing the “Blackberry Prayer” with heads bowed and hands folded over the keyboard.

Important to engineers is their professional certification. Not only is this important in peer review, but for career purposes as well. The industry leading, award winning EMC Proven Professional program was on hand at EMC World. As I mentioned in my Twitter stream on EMC World, certification tests were being offered for half price during the show, and within the first two days 122 tests had been taken. They were expecting 250 total by the end of the week, with many new specialty certifications conferred for the first time.

Wednesday afternoon, on the main stage, the Proven Professional Awards were given. VP of EMC Education Services, Tom Clancy was on hand to launch and EMCee (pun intended) the ceremonies. Tom set the audience at ease by introducing himself humorously and presciently by saying “Hello, I’m Billy Crystal and welcome to the Academy Awards.”

Tom introduced Frank Hauk, EMC Executive VP and executive sponsor of the program spoke of the importance of this program in the industry and academia. He mentioned that the program has grown from 20K to 30K certified professionals in just one year. He also mentioned that EMC would continue to invest in the program. Last year’s awards at EMC World in Orlando were presented in a rather small room… that was overflowing. This year and into the future, the awards would be presented as a main event.

Alok Shrivastava, Senior Director responsible for the Proven Professional program awarded the Knowledge Sharing Awards — white papers on Best Practices in storage. He and Tom Clancy also awarded raffle prizes to the assembled Proven Professionals. They each had on their Proven Professional shirts, a light blue, not unlike the Science Division in the original Star Trek.

Web 2.0

One thing new this year is the amount of Web 2.0-style coverage of EMC World. The conference website itself uses a Flash-based “information growth ticker”, social networking opportunities, AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) based agenda builder… and links to EMC bloggers, some of whom are blogging about the show itself.

I’ve mentioned Twitter a few times. For the first time this year, Twitter has been used by attendees to “micro-blog” about EMC World in real-time. These posts, hash-tagged with “#emcworld” could be aggregated and sorted by a variety of tools, creating a virtual news stream. See my link at the bottom as an example.

On Wednesday, a special lunch gathering for those Twittering about EMC World was convened impromptu. And in a rather solipsistic manner, it was set up using Twitter. Half a dozen of us collected and spent an hour and a half discussing social media as a way to connect, enhance and improve communication with Partners and Customers.

Customers

One of the reasons customers attend is to save money, lots of money, on how they manage their information infrastructure. I spoke with one presenter who said he had spoken to a customer after his talk, and was able to show them how to consolidate in a way that would save them half a million dollars a month in energy costs.

Keynotes

On Wednesday, Mark Lewis, President of EMC’s CMA Division did a presentation on what’s coming from the Documentum division of EMC. He showed Knowledge Worker, using the Firefox browser, a powerful web-based tool for code and content development teams to create and manage custom enterprise applications The Web 2.0 integration was impressive. Also demoed were a variety of mashup, social networking and folksonomy tools. He discussed “Project Magellan”, which will be released in Q3 for free.

Thursday, Dr. Stephen Herrod, Chief Technology Officer of VMware offered a fascinating tour through VMware’s product stack, and a demo of the newly announced “Site Recovery Manager” which virtualizes an entire site for the purpose of automating the work flow of a “run book” in restarting a business in a remote site.

In conclusion

Q: How can you tell a conference is a technical conference?

A: Wednesday night, the show’s entertainment was Billy Crystal, Emmy winner, Tony winner, and past host of the Academy Awards ceremonies. He began the evening by greeting the room with:

“Good evening and hellooo nerds!

There are attendees here from 79 countries. It’s like being at Angelina Jolie’s house.

Nothing says Las Vegas like 7,000 engineers.”

A great conclusion to a great show.

By the way, I’ve reported more details via Twitter. These can be found in the news stream when you click here

Thanks for coming along,

BillPetro.com

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EMC World, in its 2nd day in Las Vegas, is by and for engineers. While there are more suits present than in previous years, nevertheless most of the presenters are usually not polished marketing presenters but often the software developer who wrote the code for the product. This provides a level of unparalleled access for attendees.

I had lunch with a SAN Administrator for a state government office and we discussed data replication at a pretty deep level. This gentleman was a heavy user of the technology and was particularly impressed with EMC’s RecoverPoint technology. I asked if he found the price-point to be prohibitive. He assured me that it was quite attractive: the price had dropped since the product was initially released, and it offered so many features and such great capabilities that it eliminated the need for spending money on lots of other technologies. He found it to be ideal in a VMware environment and was excellent in the event he needed disaster recovery.

I’m typing this article in the Cyber Cafe, a number of stands with numerous laptops set up for attendees to use between talks and strolls through the Solutions Pavilion (Exhibit Hall). The EMC sysadmins have done a great job setting them up, with easy access to web browsers. They told me, however, that some will unplug them so that they can plug in their own laptops to charge them. Bad idea. The batteries have been removed from these laptops — I’m told they tend to grow legs and walk away — and as soon as they are unplugged, they shut down.

Speaking of the Pavilion, I spent some time speaking to a variety of exhibitors today. Not only are there “the usual suspects” but as in years past, some competitors on the floor as well, showing the openness of the show. Here’s what caught my eye and ear:

• Intel SS4200-E

With a name that rolls off the tongue, this is the Intel version of the product I mentioned in my previous post yesterday that Dave Donatelli referenced as the perfect graduation present — a sub-$500 external Network Attached Storage (NAS) device for consumers, that leverages EMC’s LifeLine software. The demo is a device that takes 1-4 internal drives (sold separately) that can provide RAID protection as well as a variety of media services. For example the device can speak to an Xbox as a bridge, display movies to a widescreen TV… display photos to a digital picture frame… provide web-accessible photos to a remote device like an iPhone… play MP3s through an iTunes server… etc.

• Iomega

While slightly later to market, and with the intention of addressing a slightly different market than Intel, Iomega — currently being acquired by EMC — also previewed their LifeLine-based offering. It will be available in different configurations than the Intel offering, but with all the same capabilities. This is one to keep an eye out for.

• Retrospect

Acquired years ago by EMC as part of the Dantz acquisition, this well respected consumer and small business backup solution was, 20 years ago, the only 3rd party backup product for the Macintosh. This is features as part of LifeLine, and new features and capabilities are coming that will make this a compelling offering for both local and cloud-based backup

• Mozy

Speaking of cloud-based backup, this popular technology, acquired last year by EMC, allows consumers and small businesses to have SAAS (Software As A Service) backup for pennies a day. An application on a Mac or PC backups files over the Internet in encrypted form, initially as a full backup, then block-level incrementals thereafter. Offsite backup without having to move backup media offsite.

• 3D or Data De-Duplication

Mark Twomey, also known as Storagezilla, was in the EMC booth explaining the new data de-duplication capabilities of the EMC Disk Libraries. Mark knows everyone.

I’ve reported more details via Twitter. These can be found either at:

• http://twitter.com/billpetro and search on the tag “#emcworld”

• http://twemes.com/emcworld and search on author “billpetro”

Thanks for coming along.

BillPetro.com

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A full and rich day in the “city by the sand” Las Vegas. I attended a variety of talks during the day, but the best was:

• Virtualization Technology and Directions offered by David Black, PhD of EMC. He covered a discussion of a variety of virtualization techniques, but spent most of his time talking about virtualizing servers and virtualizing storage. There was much discussion of VMware technologies, but also detailed discussion of Storage Area Network (SAN) virtualization using EMC Invista and File (NAS) virtualization with EMC Rainfinity. Full marks.

The keynotes were huge, the plenary talks in the huge hall at Mandalay Bay Conference Center. EMC’s President, CEO and Chairman Joe Tucci kicked it off with a fascinating set of information. This year’s EMC World has:

• 9300 attendees
• 56% of them are new this year
• 556 sessions

Further, there are about 120 exhibitors here this year. And a tour of the Exhibit Floor seemed to confirm this. It was packed with Partners and people.

Joe announced right off the top EMC’s interest in helping with the China earthquake relief effort by the use of matching gifts. Head to the Cyber Cafe.

Joe’s theme was the phenomenal growth in online information, where it comes from and how it’s going to be stored, protected, managed and wrapped in intelligence.

How much information are we talking about?

• 173 Exabytes of information, 1773 Exabytes in 5 years. 10X growth, or 60% Compounded Annual Growth Rate for storage on disk arrays.

Where will this new data come from? IDC has done research on this. By 2010:

• 70% will come from individual creation

• 85% will become the responsibility of organizations: YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Google

Digital Footprint Calculator: Track “Your Star” in the digital universe.

Further, IDC has developed a Personal Digital Footprint Calculator. Using Joe as an example of how many photos he creates, music he gets, etc., they calculated he uses about 4GB of data daily. If he’s typical, multiplying his number by the number of attendees at EMC World:

• 4GB/day x 9K attendees = 35TB/day

To this end, Joe announced a new division at EMC responsible for Cloud Computing Services and Infrastructure. All to address what he calls:

• Information Centric Computing

Howard Elias, EMC President of Global Services and Resource Management Software picked up this theme and talked about:

• Liquid Computing requires Liquid IT Management

He spent time discussing how the new rules of computing require new ways of managing. He mentioned EMC Smarts “model based” management, as well as Voyance, a relatively recent EMC acquisition.

Dave Donatelli, President of EMC’s Storage Division wrapped up the morning keynotes.

He reminded us that this is graduation season, and a great gift would be EMC’s:

• $500 personal storage platform, that can be backed up via Software As A Service (SAAS) Mozy.

He also announced de-duplication in the new:

• LAN Backup to Disk (B2d) and Disk Library

Real-time updates

I’ve reported more details via Twitter. These can be found either at:

• http://twitter.com/billpetro and search on the tag “#emcworld”

• http://twemes.com/emcworld and search on author “billpetro”

Thanks for coming along.

BillPetro.com

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I’m in Lost Wages, Nevada for the EMC World event being held at Mandalay Bay. The first night’s entertainment, the Goo Goo Dolls. 9300 attendees so far. While I’ll be writing daily about this huge show on this blog, for the first time, another technology will be used to update information more quickly: Twitter.

To follow my “tweets” or my more frequent posts, you get them at http://twitter.com/billpetro

I have written about it before, but the use of the technology continues to evolve. It is at least 3 things:

1. Micro-blogging technology that allows one to write just 140 characters
2. Broadcast Instant Messaging that is not just one-to-one, but one-to-many, as many chose to “follow” you
3. Presence-management or status-management as it is often used to tell others where one is or what one is doing

More recently companies and professional bloggers are using Twitter to make product announcements, press releases, and references to news stories. There are technologies, for example, that sent out “tweets” (Twitter posts) to all followers after a blog article has been posted. This is true on my group of blogs. Other tools allow presentation of blog posts to social networks like Facebook.

For EMC World, there is a group of bloggers and twitterers (is that even a word yet?) who will be writing posts about the event, and their adventures in Las Vegas during the event. These can be tracked by the “tag” that is used in tweets of “#emcworld”. So, you can use a Twitter aggregator to filter all tweets with the tag “#emcworld” and see what the twittersphere is discussing. For example, a visit to http://twemes.com/emcworld will show who is talking about emcworld, including me.

Thansk for coming along,

BillPetro.com

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This year’s EMC World, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas May 19-22 promises to be the event to showcase EMC’s products around hardware, software and solutions. Having attended last year, it’s the best place to get access from EMC’s engineering, marketing and executive staff. Expecting about 10,000 attendees, the exhibit floor will showcase solutions from EMC and Partners.

I’ll be in attendance this year, blogging about what’s hot from the keynotes, sessions, and entertainment.

An added bonus will be the Sunday evening concert with the Goo Goo Dolls, and Wednesday evening’s event with comedian Billy Crystal.

Will there be a test? If you want, EMC Education Services will offer discounted EMC Proven Professional exams right onsite.

Come along with me.

BillPetro.com

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As you may know, Twitter is a “micro blogging” technology that I like to call a “presence management” tool. Think of it as “broadcast instant messaging” where you send out 140 character messages to your “followers” people who subscribe to your Twitter feed. I usually write about where I am in my travels for work and what I’m speaking about. My feed can be found at: http://twitter.com/billpetro

I have about 70 people who follow me, and I follow about the same number, it’s rather symetrical. But Sunday night, people used a feature of Twitter in an innovative way: by flagging your “Tweet” (message post) with the string “#aa08″ they could be tracked by various other tools, like “Twemes” at http://www.twemes.com/aa08 that show just post related to the Academy Awards 2008 show.

It was like a real-time “Mystery Science 3000″ event where your buddies are sharing sometimes hilarious comments about what’s going on. One I laughed out loud for in particular was “Ron Weasely wins best Supporting Actress award” referring to the red haired character in the Harry Potter movies. Briton Tilda Swinton won the award, and has bright red hair (though you’ll remember her as the White Witch in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”)

What’s amazing is the ecosystems that are growing up around innovative technologies like Twitter. This tool has often been called a solution in search of a problem. I think we’ll be seeing other applications of this kind of social technology.

BillPetro.com

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Here’s an interesting new social networking photo sharing site you might want to check out. It’s called Zooomr. My friend Brian Berliner points out that Zooomr is offering 12 months of FREE Zooomr Pro account access to (Google) Bloggers. This FREE upgrade includes 4GB of photo uploads each month.

What does it look like? For example, if you click on the photo here, it will take you to my account on the site:

How would you get this free upgrade? Simply follow these instructions. Zooomr currently supports both OpenID authentication and the Flickr API for uploading photographs to their site.

Check it out.

BillPetro.com

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The purpose of this weblog is to provide observation, insight, and analysis of new trends in technology to people who can benefit from it.

The audience is intended to be those who are technically literate, without having to be on the bleeding edge of the digerati. The approach will be introductory, rather than how-to, showcasing some of the latest emerging technologies.

Out primary focus will be on information. So much of our modern lives and business dealings involve the quick, efficient, and effective use of information. And with the amount of digital information growing exponentially, today’s challenges around information include:

• Where to find the right information?
• How to make sense of it?
• How to store and manage it?
• How to communicate it to the right people?

Our approach will include observation about the trends, some analysis of its velocity and likelyhood of mass acceptance, and finally some potential practical business application of the technology.

Some of the topics I’ll cover in this blog will include:

• Blogs (web logs): what are they and is it catching?
• RSS (Really Simple Syndication): just another TLA or the start of something big?
• Virtualization: why is this one of the biggest trends in computing?
• Social Networking: How are people using sites like LinkedIn and Facebook?
• Podcasting: you don’t have to be a DJ, but you can play one on the Internet.
• Wiki and Wikipedia: collaborative content and the free encyclopedia.
• Answers.com: ask Mr. Dictionary/Thesaurus/Encyclopedia/Web.
• Smart Phones: cell phones meet PDAs
• PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants): Palm and PocketPC
• Search Wars: you’ve made it through the Browser Wars, now what?
• Mapping: how does Internet mapping suggests location based services?
• Malware: Spam, virus, adware… oh my!
• IM (Instant Messaging): the new e-mail?
• SMS (Short Messaging System): the new IM?

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