http://www.montanalife.com/darin/my_insight/archives/000035.html

My buddy Darin posted an article with his thoughts about the intentions of Google’s Wi-Fi. I have a theory, and it doesn’t have anything to do with leveraging their site as a launch page for Internet users, or to gain more intelligence about their search algorithm, it is to lay the infrastructure for a software revolution and beat companies like Microsoft at their own game.

Microsoft was one of the major proponents of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) which essentially is a hosted software service model, leveraging web services and web service registries to provide subscription-based use of popular software products. My company, Goomzee.com, has successfully implemented this model for hosted e-commerce websites; they want to do it for everyday software products and control updates and licensing (protect against piracy).

Google recognized the potential of this infrastructure and is a leader in usability leveraging AJAX (asynchronous javascript and XML) to provide users a local pc experience for web-based software - as seen with GMail and Google Maps. Essentially they are reverting back to the old “thick client” computing model by using client-side Javascript in order to make web-based software more responsive and meeting demands of the consumer. See my article on AJAX.

Manufacturers in the future are going to embed their own internet browser technology into devices, which will transform web data into the format required for that device. These browser will connect to these “services” and leverage AJAX to provide a customer-friendly interface. The only way for this model to truly work is to have a “cloud” of wireless Internet access, citywide, nationwide, worldwide so these devices will be able to connect. WiMAX is now even closer to becoming a standard, and provides broadband at speeds approaching 90mph.

I think Google sees the “big picture” and is positioning themselves not as an Internet start page, or even ISP, but and the software service provider of the future. Perhaps even replacing giants like Microsoft by shifting away from the need for expensive operating systems and pc-based software.

About four years ago I predicted that BEA Systems would position its J2EE Application Server as the “operating system” for enterprise web applications, becoming a commodity but leveraging their installbase to shift towards a software service provider. I reckon the application servers will become the “Windows” of our wired world, and companies with the same vision of Google and others will emerge as the software leaders.

Which locked room on Google’s campus is working on the browser-based word processor, or spreadsheet program? I’m sure it’s happening. Anyhow, that’s my bet on the move to provide a cloud of “free” wireless broadband. San Francisco is one of the best testing grounds of the techno-savvy software users and will help them iron out any kinks in their infrastructure deployment plans.

Happy thoughts!

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 4th, 2005 at 1:00 am and is filed under Knowledge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. This post has been viewed 519 times.