Monthly Archives: April 2012

Apr 16 2012

Microsoft versus OpenOffice: Not the battle of the future!

Anyone remember Super Audio CD (SACD)? Or Audio DVD (ADVD)? Those formats once had a battle about which would succeed the Audio CD as the primary media for audio content. However, after the invention of MP3 and its wide distribution, disc formats became obsolete.

When Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD had a similar battle about who would be the next primary video media, experts already talked about a war where there was nothing to win for anybody. It was predicted that the Internet would become that primary media and that hard media such as discs or tapes would no longer be of any importance. Well, Blu-ray Discs did gain some market share, but only temporarily, as we look back today. Download portals, and also IPTV and video-on-demand offerings are slowly coming and will, for sure, get their pieces of the cake.

LibreOffice 3.5.1 came out recently, and Apache OpenOffice with the help of IBM will release a new version (4.0) approximately at the end of the year. These two alternative office suites run another attack on Microsoft’s dominance of the office software sector. But is this really a battle that is worth fighting for?

First of all, this battle is almost impossible to win. Not only that Microsoft’s dominant market share is equal to a de-facto industry standard, the office documents are mainly based on Microsoft’s proprietary document formats, which are often non-disclosed and therefore hard for non-Microsoft applications to interpret correctly. I think that any success of alternative office suites raise and fall with their ability to import and export Microsoft formats properly.

But, is this really the battlefield of the future? I don’t think so.

The actual battlefield about the future of software is in the cloud!

As Andreas Groth (@andreasgroth) and I mentioned in several earlier blog posts, the final goal of software evolution is to be web-based. There are several reasons for that: Web-based applications are easy to access (from any device), they are cheap to maintain and they support our new requirements in terms of collaboration and content sharing more easily as any local installed app does.

In regards to office software, all vendors had to start their development almost from zero again, which makes this race so interesting. Regardless, if we look at Microsoft’s Office 365, IBM Docs (formally known as LotusLive Symphony) or Google Docs, they all have in common that they were more or less developed from scratch. But beside the big three, there is a high momentum in that area to make applications accessible from a simple browser. Several examples are VMware AppBlast, Guacamole, and LibreOffice, which all use technology based on HTML-5.

But what will be the criteria to succeed in the cloud?

There is no doubt, that any office software needs to fulfil the productivity basics. I don’t think that cloud-based software must implement all fancy features of Office 2010, but it must enable the user to fulfil day-to-day tasks, including the capability to import and export office documents, display them properly, and run macros.

In terms of collaboration, cloud-based software needs to provide added value to any desktop- based application. It should be easily possible to share and exchange documents with coworkers.

But the most important factor will be its integration capabilities. Desktop and office workloads will not be moved into the cloud from one day to the other. There will be a certain time frame where the use of cloud-based applications start to grow, but the majority of people is still using locally installed applications. Being well integrated, both with the local installed software and also with server- based collaboration tools, will be the key factor for success. This is why I see Microsoft in a far better position than Google, although Google Docs has been around for quite some time and has started to become interesting, feature-wise.

IBM seems to be on the correct track. Its integration of IBM Docs into IBM Connections and IBM SmartCloud for Social Business (formally known as LotusLive), which can be tested in the IBM Greenhouse, looks very promising.

Summary

The new battlefield will be in the cloud, and although Microsoft did its homework, the productivity software market is changing. There are more significant solutions and vendors available than in the years before. If they play their cards right and provide good integration together with an attractive license model and collaboration features, they could get their share of (Microsoft’s) cake.

Apr 1 2012

Let’s talk about clouds – seriously!

“A cloud is a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water, various chemicals (or water and chemicals) suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body.” – Wikipedia

Today, I would like to discuss this topic from a slightly different angle. As you might know, clouds are organized in layers. Let’s discuss these layers and how they affect us.

Moderate vertical

This is the lowest cloud layer and the layer that affects us most. The most important clouds on this layer are called cumulus clouds. The cumulus clouds are the type of cloud everyone thinks of when we talk about clouds. They come with a rather plain base and a fluffy looking top, which can animate our imagination about their shapes.

Single cumulus cloud

Single cumulus cloud

Cumulus clouds—or cumuli—mainly form from the spring to fall season. They are usually caused by thermal up-winds which arise when a spot on the ground is warmer than its surroundings. The air above this hot spot is warmed and because of the nature of physics, starts climbing until it reaches a so-called “inversion,” which is a level that has even warmer air. At that level, the air can’t climb any further and the contained water is condensing, causing the cloud to form. This is why all cumulus clouds in an area all exist on the very same altitude.

Set of cumulus clouds, all on the same altitude

Set of cumulus clouds, all on the same altitude

But, what are they good for? What are their use cases?

There are two user groups that are interested in cumulus clouds: farmers and glider pilots.

Farmers, because cumuli might mean rain (depends on proper sizing) and glider pilots, because the thermal up-wind, which caused the cumulus cloud, is a perfect up lift.

Let me say a few words about sizing…

When cumulus clouds become oversized—there is more and more warmer air climbing from the ground, bringing more condensed water to the cloud—the clouds start towering. They can tower up to very high altitudes—so, they are then referred to as towering cumulus clouds. If they reach a certain size, the internal forces basically break through and a thunderstorm is the final result. Those clouds are then called cumulonimbus.

Low layer

The clouds on the low layer are mainly stratus clouds. Although cumulus clouds are objects with more or less well-defined borders, status clouds are more like a sea of clouds without an end. Stratus clouds arise when wet air cools and can no longer hold water, which then condenses to that “cloudy layer”. When stratus clouds hit the ground, they are called fog!

Stratus cloud layer from above

Stratus cloud layer from above

Middle layer

Middle layered clouds have the prefix “alto” to indicate that they reside on a higher layer than the clouds discussed before. Depending on its origin, they are called altocumulus, altostatus, and so on.

High layer

The cloud family that forms on the high layer are called cirrus clouds. Cirrus clouds include ice crystals, which give the clouds their beautiful shapes.

I hope you enjoyed reading about some other aspects of cloud. And, by the way, its April Fools’ Day today!