Get House of Heroes Silent Night FREE on Amazon.com

What matters more to you: content or the way you get it?

I ask this question because Alan Kaufman at the Evergreen Review seems to believe the delivery method is the most important. So important that he even invokes Godwin’s Law on himself when talking about the current trend of books moving from paper to devices like the Kindle.

All physical books must go up the chimney stack. Such was the methodology of the SS who forced their prisoners to run naked races round and round the barracks yard in the Polish winter, a race that no one was meant to win.

The book is fast becoming the despised Jew of our culture. Der Jude is now Der Book. Hi-tech propogandists tell us that the book is a tree-murdering, space-devouring, inferior form of technology; that society would simply be better-off altogether if we euthanized it even as we begin to carry around, like good little Aryans, whole libraries in our pockets, downloaded on the Uber-Kindle.

What an ass.

He seems to believe that e-books are responsible for bookstores closing. They aren’t. The vast majority of the population that reads doesn’t have e-readers, but they do often buy their books online, and that’s what’s killing bookstores.

He also seems to believe that e-readers hearld a new age where only the biggest, most important authors get published. This is nonsense. If that was the case, I won’t have a short story for sale in the Kindle store (for those who don’t have a Kindle, download the free Kindle ap for the PC and then you can read my story if you like).

The writer of the article is simply wrong, and comparing the transition from paper to e-readers to the Holocaust is just insulting on many, many levels.

Further, everything is starting to digital. Does it really matter if the movie you are watching is on cable, on a DVD, on a DVR or some sort of streaming video format? Does it matter if music comes to you as an MP3, a CD, or on a record? The content is basically the same across the various delivery systems. The content is what matters.

For fun, here’s a poll:

It’s that time of year again. The holiday shopping season has shifted into full gear, and so have the economists, analysts and retailers who wring their hands over things like Black Friday sales figures. Or those of its fake, and widely mocked, online counterpart, Cyber Monday (which is far from the busiest shopping day on the web — online sales at Amazon, for example, typically peak in mid-December).

Overall, a modest improvement over last year’s dismal performance is expected. Forrester Research projects an 8 percent rise in holiday sales online, up from the 5 percent growth rate last year. comScore sees growth at 3 percent, all but erasing the 3 percent drop last year. But while online retailers are sure to see stronger sales than their offline rivals, the desperate discounts happening across the board threaten to erode any profits they may have once hoped for this season.

For my money, the best indicator is the average consumer shopping budget. Despite all the hot items for sale, we’re still feeling the pinch of the economic downturn, and as such, budgets are back in vogue. A Gallup poll showed consumers plan to spend an average $638 per household this season, up $22 from last year. But a survey by the National Retail Foundation said they will spend $683 dollars, or a decline of 3.2 percent, following on the heels of an 8 percent drop in spending last year.

Think about that. The NRF — the trade group pushing the annual Cyber Monday charade — expects consumers to spend even less than last year. And with respected analysts publicly predicting a double-dip recession, such caution on the part of consumers is more likely to grow in December than abate.

To that end, retailers are responding the way they did last holiday season — with ultra-steep discounts early on. The price war that Wal-Mart is waging against Amazon may stretch consumers’ dollars, but it’s hell on other retailers, who must either match discounts or risk losing customers. Already, 2009 is shaping up to be a repeat of 2008, when retailers desperately slashed prices to entice wary consumers.

That is undoubtedly worse news for brick-and-mortar stores than it is for online stores, where operating costs are lower. Many big retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy are responding by pushing deep discounts on their web sites, but in doing do, they risk cannibalizing sales from their offline stores, while the costs of running those stores remains the same. Which means that even if overall holiday sales figures do increase by a few percentage points, profits at many retailers may decline or be eliminated entirely.

The Black Friday deals tracked on Twitter aren’t just a stream of bargains, they also measure the desperation retailers are already feeling. Gap’s site was offering sweaters at 50 percent off. Betsey Johnson took 40 percent off everything in its online store. Even Apple is getting into the deep-discount spirit.

Discovery-oriented sites like Twitter are helping to spread news about bargains, further boosting the appeal of online shopping among consumers, as Colin noted earlier this week. In Apple’s iTunes store, the second best-selling paid app last week was RedLaser, which scans barcodes and offers instant price comparisons with online sites.

As with last year, there is likely to be one outstanding success story in this bleak retail environment: Amazon. In an environment where penny-pinching consumers are driving down retail profits, Amazon – the master at thriving on razor-thin profit margins – is thriving. Goldman Sachs and Piper Jaffray recently raised their revenue estimates for Amazon, citing a rise in unique users and overall traffic.

As long as the economy remains weak, the progression of the retail industry remains clear: All retailers must become more like Amazon – low prices, tiny margins – or suffer a slow death.

Hello all!

If you shop Amazon.com for amazing deals on everything from electronics to potting soil to DVDs and, oh right, books! . . . please use my link

http://www.eva-colo.com/Amazon.html

Click on any Amazon.com logos on the page and you’ll navigate to their site to begin your shopping experience.  It is the real Amazon.com with all of the same pricing and special deals, but they give me a little monetary kick-back for sending them high quality shoppers.

Right now, you will find crazy deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Let me know if you have any questions!
Thank you so much!

Jan

On Cyber Monday, Nov. 30, you can buy my novels at 20 percent off. Follow @cailinAolain on Twitter to get the special one-day Amazon.com discount code!

Now there is really no reason to get out of bed on Black Friday.

Part of me gets butterflies just thinking about racks and racks of discounted clothing. I’ve been dreaming of Black Friday since I woke up over the toilet in a Tinker Bell costume on November 1st; the cheap designer handbags, the plasma TVs, the stops at Cinnabon and Auntie Anne’s to refuel, the high of leaving the mall with all of my Christmas gifts and some money left in my bank account. There is just something about being in a mall on Black Friday that cannot be replicated.

Then reality sets in and I realize that while in a perfect world I would be skipping through sales racks, after finishing these freakin’ essays, traveling home and stuffing my face for an entire day, my (Queen-size!) bed is going to be much more appealing than lines at 4 am in the freezing cold. And don’t even get me started on those slow-walking old ladies that always get in my way.

That being said, I will remain in my pajamas and snag the deals I can from the comfort of my warm home as my mother serves me delicious leftovers. For those of you who will be joining me in cyberspace, here are the websites to put at the top of your bookmarks list to ensure you get deals just as good as those over-caffeinated, line waiters pummeling their way through mall crowds. Internet, I love you.

BestBuy.com: You can get the door buster specials that people will be waiting in line at 3 am for a day early if you shop online. If you are in need for an electronic item bestbuy.com is a must visit on Thanksgiving Day. They have digital cameras for $49.99, GPS systems for $99, and plasma TVs discounted 1,000 bucks, in addition to a ton of DVDs and video games for any brother, boyfriend or guy you need to purchase a Christmas gift for.

Amazon.com: Anything you could possibly want is being sold on Amazon, and they are doing an awesome Black Friday sale this year (which has already started, by the way) where they search all the Black Friday deals other stores are giving and meet or beat those prices. A ton of jewelry is 40% off (with free shipping), you can get 50% off power tools for dad, and pick up some toys for little cousins or family friends. All the products have a limited quantity so if you see something you want add it to your bag before someone else snatches it up. But if you miss it, don’t worry; Amazon is adding new merchandise every day Thanksgiving week. And they have a fun little feature called “lightening deals,” where for a limited time a certain product will go on severe discount, so get your clicking reflexes ready. Aren’t sales so fun?

Kohls.com: Black Friday deals begin online at 12 am Friday, which means after you stuff your face on Thanksgiving, down some coffee (or Vodka…God knows we’ll need it with a house full of great aunts and grandparents) and get ready to shop until the wee hours of the morning. What’s cool about Kohl’s is that you can plan your shopping list now. They have all of their deals available to view online and you can add what you want to your wish list so when the sale starts you can simply click purchase. A TON of stuff is half off, from makeup and shoes to furniture and kitchenware. This sale is definitely a must visit!

Express.com: If you are looking for a New Years Eve outfit, a new winter coat or a classy outfit to dress your boyfriend in (those worn out jeans aren’t going to cut it when you bring him home for Christmas dinner with your family), then Express should be on the top of your favorites list. The deals are ridiculous and they are going on all week long. Leggings and tights are buy one get one half off, dresses are 30% off, and a large number of party tops are only $19.50. Polo’s and button downs for that special guy in you’re life (mine is totally my dad, don’t judge) are also buy one get one half off.

LordandTaylor.com: Hands down the department store with the best online savings. Virtually everything you could possibly want is discounted (25% off dresses, 20% to 50% off fall coats and 25% to 40% off handbags…you get the picture). Then using coupon code “BIG” gets you an additional 15% off regular priced items and $20 off clearance. If you are in search of an designer clothing, shoes, handbags or makeup, lordandtaylor.com is the best place to search out the best deals (deals are available now until Saturday).

What other websites are you cyber-shoppers planning on visiting on Black Friday? Share the wealth and let us all know!

Get $3 in MP3s at Amazon MP3

Use code MP34FREE and get $3 to use toward anything at Amazon MP3.

Please Note:
• Promotional offer valid for a limited time only and subject to change. Promotional offer is valid from November 23, 2009 12:00 AM PST through November 30, 2009 11:59 PM PST. You must redeem the code by November 30, 2009 11:59 PM PST.

• If you’ve previously entered a promotional code, clicking the “Enter Your Code” button above will show your remaining balance.

• After your purchase, you can confirm the dollar amount of the code was applied by checking your order confirmation, which will be sent to you by e-mail.

• If you receive an error entering your code, be sure to check that you’ve entered the code correctly and be sure that the promotion is still valid and has not expired. If you still receive an error, contact Customer Service via Amazon MP3 Support.

Just when it looked clear where the markets were lining up around data center automation and cloud computing, things change. I guess that is what makes this industry so very interesting.  The proposed acquisition by HP of 3Com is a direct challenge to Cisco’s network management franchise. However, the implications of this move go further than what meets the eye.  It also pits HP in a direct path against EMC with its Cisco partnership. And to make things even more interesting, it also puts these two companies in a competitive three way race against IBM and its cloud/data center automation strategy. And of course, it doesn’t stop there. A myriad of emerging companies like Google and Amazon want a larger share of the enterprise market for cloud services. Companies like Unisys and CSC that has focused on the outsourced secure data centers are getting into the act.

I don’t think that we will see a single winner — no matter what any one of these companies will tell you.  The winners in this market shift will be those companies can build a compelling platform and a compelling value proposition for a partner ecosystem.  The truth about the cloud is that it is not simply a network or a data center. It is a new way of providing services of all sorts that can support changing customer workloads in a secure and predictable manner.

In light of this, what does this say for HP’s plans to acquire 3Com? If we assume that the network infrastructure is a key component of an emerging cloud and data center strategy, HP is making a calculated risk in acquiring more assets in this market.  The company that has found that its ProCurve networking division has begun gaining traction. HP ProCurve Networking is the networking division of HP.  The division includes network switches, wireless access points, WAN routers, and Access Control servers and software.   ProCurve competes directly with Cisco in the networking switch market. When HP had a tight partnership with Cisco, the company de-emphasized the networking. However, once Cisco started to move into the server market, the handcuffs came off. The 3Com acquisition takes the competitive play to a new level. 3Com has a variety of good pieces of technology that HP could leverage within ProCurve. Even more significantly, it picks up a strong security product called TippingPoint, a 3Com acquisition. TippingPoint fills a critical hole in HP’s security offering. TippingPoint, offers network security offerings including intrusion prevention and a product that inspects network packets.  The former 3Com subsidiary has also established a database of security threats based a network of external researchers.

But I think that one of the most important reasons that HP bought 3Com is its strong relationships in the Chinese market. In fiscal year 2008 half of 3Com’s revenue came from its H3C joint venture with Chinese vendor, Huawei Technology. Therefore, it is not surprising that HP would have paid a premium to gain a foothold in this lucrative market. If HP is smart, it will do a good job leveraging the many software assets to build out both its networking assets as well as beefing up its software organization. In reality, HP is much more comfortable in the hardware market. Therefore, adding networking as a core competency makes sense. It will also bolster its position as a player in the high end data center market and in the private cloud space.

Cisco, on the other hand, is coming from the network and moving agressively into the cloud and the data center market.  The company has purchased a position with VMWare and has established a tight partnership with EMC as a go to market strategy.  For Cisco, it gives the company credibility and access to customers outside of its traditional markets. For EMC, the Cisco relationship strengthens its networking play.  But an even bigger value for the relationship is to present a bigger footprint to customers as they move to take on HP, IBM, and the assortment of other players who all want to win.  The Cisco/EMC/VMware play is to focus on the private cloud.  In their view a private cloud is very similar to a private, preconfigured data center.  It can be a compelling value proposition to a customer that needs a data center fast without having to deal with a lot of moving parts.  The real question from a cloud computing perspective is the key question: is this really a cloud?

It was inevitable that this quiet market dominated by Google and Amazon would heat up as the cloud becomes a real market force.  But I don’t expect that HP or Cisco/EMC will have a free run. They are being joined by IBM and Microsoft — among others. The impact could be better options for customers and prices that invariably will fall. The key to success for all of these players will be how well they manage what will be an increasingly heterogeneous, federated, and highly distributed hardware and software world. Management comes in many flavors: management of these highly distributed services and management of the workloads.

of Rachel’s life just passed by.

I don’t remember exactly when it was, but sometime during Rachel’s stay at the hospital, probably while we were in San Francisco, she received an Amazon gift card over e-mail. At the time, and still, I felt this was fucking ridiculous. I’ve already said why. And I’ll say why again. $20 is about enough to buy what I got (I’ll get into that in a moment). It’s not enough for groceries, not enough t pay rent, not enough to make a car payment. Basically, not enough to do anything useful, which, at the time, we were in desperate need of doing. So, in essence, it’s just enough for the individual to say, hey, we’re thinking about you, but not enough to actually do anything of use. I don’t remember who the people were who issued this gift card. I don’t reemmber if I even ever met them. But what pissed me off at the time was that if they were gonna bother to get her a fucking gift card, why not either have it be for an amount she could use, or for someTHING she could use. I guess I feel that if you’re gonna send your best, either do it or don’t. Like that bitch, Bev, who sent Rachel a nauseatingly flowery card about trusting in Jesus and Rachel’s miracle coming. Such a gesture serves only the gesturer, not the gesturee. Thus it’s a selfish act, having nothing to do with the sick person. It’s a way of assuaging guilt. And to that, as to other things, I say, eat your fucking guilt. Guilt does not feed people, nor provide housing, and it sure as fuck doesn’t heal people. I’d honestly rather someone just keep their fucking mouth shut than provide some meaningless, selfish condolence. And yet people do it all the time. I’m guessing so they don’t feel like assholes. Well, guess what? You are an asshole. And the less I know about that, the better.

So anyway, Rachel did nothing with the gift card because it was fucking useless. Since I know her e-mail account information, I forwarded the gift card to myself. I’d intended to use it on something like a game or… I didn’t know. For months… actually, for over a year, that stupid gettin’-rid-o’-guilt gift card sat in my inbox. I got really sick of looking at it, and yet wasn’t ever inspired to get anything.

Until yesterday.

I saw an announcement on GameSpot that the Star Trek DVD/Blu-Ray, etc. was coming out Tuesday. I was gonna buy it for myself anyway, and was about to do so when I suddenly remembered the Il Uselesso Amazon card that I’d been harboring.

As I’ve said before, Rachel and I had had a pact that I’d go see the recent Star Trek at the Braodway MetroPlex (in uniform) in downtown Portland with Cheryl and afterwards, Rachel’d make fun of me. Rachel died months before we’d have that chance. I saw it in Hollywood with Succinctrix and others. But now, it’s come full circle. In life, Rachel couldn’t join me for the geek hoorah, so in death, she just bought me the damn DVD.

In honor of World Usability Day (WUD) 2009, I’m publishing a second post today. As part of our annual Customer Experience Rankings, we get consumers to answer several questions about their experiences with companies. One of those questions is “How easy is it to work with this firm?“

For our analysis, we take the percentage of consumers that say the company was easy to work with and subtract the percentage that say the company was difficult to work with. Using this net score, we ranked 113 companies. Here are the top 25 firms from last year’s rankings:

We just got the data back from our 2009 survey, so I am about to start the analysis for this year’s Customer Experience Index rankings. Look for the results in early December.

The bottom line: Every company should strive to be easier to work with.

[UPDATE: I tried again, and Kindle for PC is now downloading all my books swiftly and reliably. Not sure why it wasn't before...]

I’ve been playing with Amazon.com’s new Kindle for PC application over the past 24 hours, and while the idea of having access to my Kindle books on my PC remains mighty appealing, the software as it stands in beta form is a bare-bones disappointment.

I mentioned yesterday that the Windows app was refusing to let me download books I’d already purchased. As of this morning it’s still choking about a third of the time. But I’ve been able to get access to part of my library.

And here’s a book in the process of being read:

Kindle for PC does indeed let you read Kindle books; it also syncs your location from other places you’ve been reading (such as your Kindle or iPhone) and shows you highlights and notes you’ve made on a Kindle.

The thing is, a Windows PC is the most powerful device to gain access to Kindle content so far, and this beta version of Kindle for PC does very little to make use of all that power. You can’t search. You can’t highlight or make new notes. You can’t buy books within the software–it sends you over to Amazon.com in your browser.

Windows PCs have tons of pixels and millions of colors, but the books I’ve read so far don’t make much use of them to make pictures look better. Here’s a page from a book that was originally in color: The tiny spot illustration still is, but the photos are now in black and white, and you can’t zoom ‘em.

All in all, it’s a considerably more rudimentary e-reading experience than what you get with Barnes & Noble’s PC software, which does highlighting and notes, lets you search, and has a two-page display mode. Come to think of it, Kindle for the PC is nearly identical in features to the iPhone app. But the end result feels more spartan–for one thing, wouldn’t you be more likely to want to take copious notes on a laptop with a comfy keyboard than on an iPhone?

The Kindle software has a “Future Improvements” link that takes you to a page where Amazon says it’s considering implementing search, highlighting, notes, and better image handling. I hope it does. Actually, I wonder why it didn’t wait to release this app until it had some or all of those items. (Maybe it wanted to get something out before Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader shows up later this month.)

One thing I’m still not clear on about Amazon’s attitude towards the Kindle: Does it see the iPhone, Windows, and coming-soon Mac versions as full-blown versions of Kindle, or as conveniences for folks who own a Kindle e-reader and do most of their reading on it? I’d love to think that the software versions might not only catch up with the hardware, but surpass it…

Announcement coming soon. Nov. 30th’s a special day!

[UPDATE: I tried again, and Kindle for PC is now downloading all my books swiftly and reliably. Not sure why it wasn't before...]

Last month, one of the few new pieces of news at the Windows 7 rollout was the fact that Amazon was releasing a piece of Windows software for reading Kindle e-books. The software is now available for download–and the site says that a Mac version is coming soon.

I’d like to tell you what I think of Kindle for PC, but I can’t just yet–any time the software tries to download a book (including one I just plunked down $9.99 for), it gives me a cryptic error and tells me to try again later. Which I’ll do. But I like the concept, at least–I don’t see myself curling up with a laptop to read a novel, but I own several hundred dollars’ worth of books in Kindle form, and getting access to them on another device is a boon.

(Although I just realized: What I’d really like is a Kindle for the Web that would let me read everything I’d paid for on any Web-connected device, no downloads required. Wonder if Amazon’s contemplated such an app?)

Over at Wired’s Gadget Lab, Charlie Sorrel is intrigued by the fact that Amazon’s artwork for the Kindle for PC download page shows a book with color art, and he wonders whether the company’s hinting that a color Kindle is in the works.  Actually, a color Kindle has been available since March–it’s known as the Apple iPhone, and it became a Kindle when Amazon released e-reader software for it. The iPhone app has always been able to display color images.

If Amazon keeps on selling Kindle hardware, it’ll presumably sell a color device someday, although someday may take a long time to arrive if the company is committed to the E-Ink technology. (I doubt that color E-Ink screens that are good enough to display satisfying pictures are going to arrive anytime soon.) But you gotta think Amazon wants to be prepared for the eventuality of color Kindle e-readers, and it’s already been saying that it wants to put Kindle books on a variety of devices. Color images in Kindle e-books are just concrete evidence that Amazon thinks of Kindle as being something greater than a single hardware platform that happens to be monochrome-only at the moment.

[CLARIFICATION/UPDATE: The Kindle for iPhone app displays some stuff that could be in color in color, but not everything. My copy of Nikon D90 for Dummies shows the cover and spot illustrations in color, but not photos...]

In an effort to continue avoiding packing for a trip to Atlanta that I’m embarking on tomorrow, I am “Christmas shopping”, a.k.a. looking at books, through such delightful channels as the design blog Book By Its Cover, the publisher (of comic books and graphic novels) Drawn and Quarterly, and the resource site The Book Cover Archive.

By such semi-direct routes I stumbled across this:

Found through a post at the Most Coveted Covers part of Readerville Journal, each slender volume pairs a classic story with a story by a contemporary author. “The Wilde is matched with a Simon Van Booy story; Cather comes paired up with Lydia Peelle; Tolstoy with Holly Goddard Jones.”

Like the author of the post, I want them ALL – and I put them all on my Amazon wishlist. They’re each around 8 dollars, so I might even buy one. After all, I still have that pesky Amazon Prime with it’s always tempting free shipping…!

Here’s a bit more about the books from The Academic Files, a blog for the publisher, Harper Collins.

And now I really must pack… I’m eager to go to Atlanta – never been before – but I always get lazy/nervous before a trip…even one that is going to be nothing but fun and exploration and relaxation…

Be prepared for this space to morph into a travel log, and become littered with photographs.

Ok, so part one of my “secret project” is now complete~ Which means that it’s time to tell everyone about it, haha. It’s really nothing too special, but I went through all the recent license announcements and pre-listings on Amazon.com for manga to be on the look-out for in 2010 (aka, just new series, though I will have a post for other things, like series finales, fanbooks, artbooks, novels, etc.) and made a giant list with lots of info and my thoughts on them. I decided to call it -looking forward to the future- simply because that’s what I have on my banner right now, and I said it was connected. I really just kind of came up with it when I was making the banner, haha.
The first part will be shojo manga, and I’ve got it scheduled for Tuesday at noon (EST), so that this explanation post will be up for a while before that posts. The shojo post at least got rather out of hand, and kind of turned into almost all the shojo manga I could find that it coming out in 2010. I’ve got a list of works for the other posts, but haven’t really started working on them yet, so I’m not sure when the next post will be out yet (it will mostly depend on schoolwork).
It’s not much, but I’m pretty excited about it, and hope you all really enjoy it!
oh, and this is random, but beware of the attack of the tags in future posts. ;]

TECHNOLOGY

The number of e-books available for Apple’s iPhone and iPodTouch through the App Store surpassed the leading category, games, in September for the first time, an indication that the devices could grab market share from Amazon’s market-leading Kindle reader, a research firm said. (Informationweek11/2)

A Silicon Valley start-up said it sued Barnes & Noble on Monday, claiming that the bookseller misappropriated trade secrets in creating the Nook e-reader. Cupertino, Calif-based Spring Design said it had a nondisclosure agreement with Barnes & Noble and had been discussing its e-reader plans with the bookseller since early this year. (Cnet 11/2)

http://www.smartmoney.com/Spending/Deals/Cheap-Reads-Six-Tips-to-Save-on-Books/

Almost every conversation I have had over the past year or so always comes back to security in the cloud.  Is it really secure? Or we are thinking about implementing the cloud but we are worried about security.  There are, of course, good reasons to plan a cloud security strategy. But in a sense, it is no different than planning a security strategy for your company. But it is the big scary cloud! Well, before I list the top then issues I would like to say one thing: if you think you need an entirely different security strategy for the cloud, you may not have a comprehensive security strategy to start with.  Yes, you have to make sure that you cloud provider has a sophisticated approach to security. However, what about your Internet service provider? What about the level of security within your own IT department? Can you throw stones if you live in a glass house (yes, that is a pun…sorry)?  So, before you start fretting about security in the cloud, get your own house in order.  Do you have an identity management plan? Do you ensure that one individual within the data center can’t control all of the data within a single environment to minimize risks? If you don’t have a well executed internal security plan, you aren’t ready for the cloud.  But let’s say that you have fixed that problem and you are ready to really plan your cloud security strategy. So, here five of the issues to consider. If you have others, let’s start a conversation.

1. You need to start at the beginning with understanding the characteristics of your cloud provider. Is the company well funded? Is its data center designed with security at the center? Your level of scrutiny will also depend on how you are using the cloud. If you are using Infrastructure as a Service for a short term project there is less risk than if you are planning to use a cloud to store important customer data.

2. How is your cloud provider implementing security in a multi-tenant environment? How do they ensure that one customer’s data doesn’t impact another customer’s data?

3. Does your cloud provider give you the ability to monitor security of your data in the cloud? This will be important both for compliance and to keep track of your own security policies.

4. Does your cloud provider encrypt your critical data? If not, why not?

5. Does your cloud provider give you the ability to control who is allowed to access your information based on roles and authorization? Does the cloud provider support federated identity management? This is basic security best practices.

Now you are probably saying to yourself that this isn’t rocket science. These are fundamental security approaches that any data center should follow. I recommend that you take a look at a great document published by the Cloud Security Alliance that details many of the key issues surrounding security in the cloud. So, I guess my principle message is that cloud security is not different than security in any data center.  But the market does not seem to understand this because the perception is that a cloud is somehow not a data center that can be secured with regular old security. I think that we will see something interesting happen because of this perception: cloud vendors will begin to charge a premium for really good security.  In fact, this is already happening.  Vendors like Amazon and Salesforce are offering segregated implementations of their environments to customers who don’t trust their ordinary security approaches.  This will work in the short term primarily because during this early phase of the cloud there is not enough focus on security. Long term, as the market matures, cloud vendors will have to demonstrate their ability to provide a secure environment based on basic security best practices. In the meantime, cloud vendors will rake in the cash for premium secure cloud services.

Maybe I am just obsessed with cloud computing these days. I guess that after spending more than 18 months researching the topic for our forthcoming book, Cloud Computing for Dummies, I can be excused for my obsession.  Now that I am able to take a step back from the noise of the market, I have been thinking about what this will mean in the next ten years. Consequences of technology adoption are never what we expect. For example, in the late 1970s and early 1980s no one could imagine why anyone would want a personal computer. In fact, the only application people could imagine for a PC was a way to store recipes (I am not making this up). Keep in mind that this was before the first PC-based spreadsheet was designed by Dan Bricklin and Bob Franston(That’s them in the picture) . No one in those days could have predicted that everyone from a CEO to a three year old child would own a personal computer and its use would change the way we conduct business.  (I never did find a recipe storing application).

The same logic can be applied to the Internet. While the Internet has been used 40 years ago by researchers, it was not a commercially viable option until the mid-1990s. In the early days of the Internet it was a sophisticated communications technology with a command line interface. Once the browser came along, businesses tended to use it to share price lists, marketing materials, and job postings. There were certainly message boards but only for the real techies. There were environments such as The Well which was the first online community used primarily by academics and wild-eyed researchers.

In that context, I was thinking about what we might expect to happen with cloud computing? There is a lot to say, so I decided to break this into two parts — each one will have three consequences. Here are today’s top three:

1. Cloud computing will begin to change the way we think of an application. To be truly useful to large groups of individuals and businesses requires economies of scale in terms of massively scaled workloads. The only way to accomplish this is either to cherry pick a few big workloads (like email) or to branch out. That branching out is inevitable and will mean that vendors with cloud offerings with componentize their software offerings into modular services that can be mixed and matched with other services.

2. The prices that vendors will charge for cloud computing services will drop dramatically over the next few years. As prices drop it will become a lot more economically viable to substitute on premise environment for the cloud environment. Today this is not the case; large companies supporting thousands of users in an application environment cannot justify the movement to a cloud platform. What if the costs drop to the point where the economics (with the right workloads) favor cloud based services? When this happens there will be a tipping point that we might not even notice for a few years. But I predict that it will happen. We are already seeing Amazon dropping prices for its EC2 environment based on the competitive threat from Microsoft Azure services announcement.

3. The cloud will change the way we manage data. The traditional way we think about data neatly stored in specific databases to handle a specific business problem will inevitably change.  This won’t be an overnight change but it will happen. Data will increasingly be seen as a reusable resource that can be used in lots of different situations. There will continue to be strategic line of business applications but they will be more systems of record that keep track of the final result of actions that take place dynamically in the cloud. The value of data is not in its tight packaging as we have been used to for decades but it the flexibility to move, transform, and leverage data. The watch word for data in this new model will be Trusted Data in the Cloud.

I would love to know what you think of my top three choices; send me your comments and I will add them to my list for tomorrow.

As we deal with the cloud hype it is too easy to be dismissive and cynical. But we always treat complicated new trends that way — until one day they become the normal way of business and life.

NaNoWriMo

So, I’m doing it again. I guess I’m going nuts. I’m going to try to write 50,000 words in under 30 days (last time it took me less than 25, this time I’m shooting for even better). You can see my NaNoWriMo profile page and read the synopsis of what I’ll be writing here.

Plus, I’ve given myself a new goal – I’m hoping to talk my wife into doing it. I know she wants to, I just have to figure out what’s holding her back. If she knows anything about me, it’s that once I’ve got an idea in my head, it’s nearly impossible to get me to let it go unless you can prove my logic to be fatally flawed (almost never happens).

Anyhow, I’m posting this as an official excuse for not posting anything else for at least the month of November (except a victory post when I finish!).

If you’ve ever enjoyed writing anything, you should head over to http://www.nanowrimo.org and enter yourself in this year’s competition. Don’t worry, you’re only competing against yourself, nobody else has to read what you write (in fact, you don’t even have to read what you write), and you don’t have to feel bad about not finishing.

Plus, if you do finish, Amazon is sponsoring the same prize they did last year through their site, CreateSpace. You get to see your finished novel in print form with a free proof copy! It’s really pretty neat, and if you approve the print version, you can put it up for sale for free also. So far, since January, I’ve sold exactly zero copies of my dumb story, but that’s no reason to stop writing. I’m going to keep on plugging away at the keyboard and see what I come up with this year.

Thanks for your support and you’ll hear from me again in roughly a month.

P.S. I would appreciate it if you’d keep in tight contact with me over Facebook in November if you can because I will be relying heavily on your crazy status posts and activities to fuel my inspiration for this year’s story!

I am still at IBM’s Information on Demand conference here in Las Vegas (not my favorite place..but what can you do). In listening to a lot of discussions around strategy and products I started thinking about one of the key problems that customers are facing around business process and managing increasingly complex data. What companies really want to do is to have the flexibility and freedom to leverage their critical data across applications and situations. They also want to be able to change processes based on changing business models.

This is the core issue that companies will be facing in the coming decade and will be the difference between success and failure for many  businesses.  Here’s an example of what I mean. Let’s take the example of a retailer in a competitive market. Let’s say our retailer had five or six applications: Accounting, Human Resources, supply chain management, a customer support system, and a customer facing e-commerce system. Each of these systems has an underlying database; each one manages this data based on the business process that is the foundation of the best practices that is the value of these packages. Even if each of the packages are the best in their markets there is a core problem since each solution is a silo. Processes that move between these systems tend to fall through the cracks.  This is why we, as customers of such retailers, are often frustrated when we call about a product that wasn’t delivered, doesn’t work, or requires a change only to discover that one department has no ability to know what is happening in another area. For most companies the dream of single view of the customer is aspirational but not practical right now. In reality, it is hard for companies to mess with their existing applications. These solutions are customized for their business environment; they were expensive and complicated to implement — and change is hard. In fact, companies only change when it is more painful to stay with the status quo than it is to change. In a retail scenario, companies change their approach to process and data management when they must change their business model because the current processes will lead to failure. Retailers are currently faced with emerging approaches to selling and managing customer relationships that are challenging traditional selling models.  Look what a company like Amazon.com or Netflex have done to their slower moving competitors.

A number of customers I have spoken with understand this very well. They are looking at ways to separate their core data assets from the underlying applications. Many of these customers are at the forefront of implementing a service oriented architecture (SOA) approach to managing their software assets. They are increasingly understanding that the secret to their future success is the knowledge they have about their customers, their needs and future requirements within their own set of offerings and those from partners. These companies are setting a priority of making this data independent, secure, and accurate. These business leaders are preparing for inevitable change.  At the same time, I have seen these customers creating SOA business services that are, in essence, codified business processes. For example, a business service could be a process that checks the credit of a potential partner or links a new customer request for service to the set of applications that confirms the request, orders the part, and notifies a partner.

So, here is the problem. These customers are implementing this new model of abstracting data and process based on specific projects or business initiatives.  These projects have gotten the attention of the C-team because of the impact on revenue. But, in reality, the real breakthrough will happen when the separation of data and process are the rule, not the exception.

This is going to be the overriding challenge for the next decade because it is so hard. There is inertia to move away from the predictable packaged applications that companies have implemented for more than 30 years. But I suggest that it will be inevitable that companies will begin to understand that if they are going to remain agile and change processes when they anticipate a competitive threat. These same companies will understand that their data is too important to leave it locked inside an application linked tightly to a process.

I don’t have the answers about what the tipping point will be when this starts to become a wide spread strategy. I think that the cloud will became a forcing action that will accelerate this trend. I would love to start a dialog. Send me your thoughts and I promise to post them.

TECHNOLOGY

Amazon’s Kindle software isn’t going to be limited to the e-reading device: following Amazon’s announcement at the Windows 7 launch that it has released a version of the Kindle Reader software for PCs (”Kindle for PC“), the company has also revealed that it’s building a Mac version of the software. Neither version requires that you own a Kindle in order to download books. (Mashable10/24)