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(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Rafael Laguna de la Vera, CEO of Open-Xchange, a business-class open source collaboration software developer, presented a discussion on the opportunities of open source SaaS and cloud computing, which not only explored the history of the development of computing paradigms, but the direction of “the cloud” as it reaches maturity.
The expert panel consisted of CloudLinux CEO and founder Igor Seletskiy, TrendMicro EMEA Solution Service and business development senior solution director Robin Vann, Parallels CTO Matt Domo, Nimsoft technology VP Mark Rivington, and VMware EMEA technology chief Dave Wright.
Staring 30 years ago with the PC, Laguna said, computing milestones have become increasingly faster. Now, “The company that invented the PC has almost gone under because of it.” If Microsoft can nearly fall because of changing paradigms, how do cloud and SaaS providers keep control of the marketplace?
“We’re halfway through something sort of cloudy,” Laguna said, noting that no one’s quite sure where it’s all going, but it’s likely to involve open source software, if history teaches us anything.
The software develop platform from about 1980 to 2000 was the PC. Now, in the Internet age, that the development platform is the web itself, which is really based on open source software. “If there was a high cost, things wouldn’t be where they are today,” Laguna said. Google wouldn’t exist as it is today without open source, and Apple wouldn’t be around without FreeDSB.
Now, open source software has allowed organization to build huge, successful platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Flickr. But that doesn’t mean that they are really “open.” In fact, they are often very proprietary, and make users agree to rather unreasonable service level agreements.
“Let me show you your next threat!” Laguna said, as a photo of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg came across the projector. It’s not Steve Jobs but Zuckerberg that “everyone wants to be,” because as it prepares to roll out an email service, it will leverage its huge existing customer base and tremendous cloud. The panel, however, was skeptical.
Domo said there’s still plenty of opportunity for service providers. “Most applications are on-premise… and it’s going to be quite some time until they’re migrated to a Facebook-like platform.”
Seletskiy said that it’s not a threat. “They are all about connecting individuals — they’re not about businesses.” He noted that businesses want the trust that a professional host offers, and that even if the technology is there, there is not that level of trust. “I don’t see them competing with service providers.”
Laguna noted, however, that while Facebook is not a threat right now, it may be in a few years as it becomes an application cloud.
Laguna said, however, that the industry is moving away from vendor dependant technologies. He said that SaaS is growing much faster than on-premise software. This year SaaS email will be much bigger than on-premise email. And that with 1.6 to 2 billion email accounts in existance, this presents a huge opporunity for SaaS hosted email providers, who can offer a big price difference improvement, along with security and reliability.
The fact that they are proprietary makes some of the largest clouds the least attractive to businesses. Google, while not a traditional software vendor, it offers a proprietary cloud with proprietary Google APIs. It’s ramping up its cloud back-end, but is stifled by its lack of interoperability.
Laguna warned the croud that they should be concerned about the intentions of those in charge of the cloud platforms. According to its SLA, Google App Engine reserves the right to basically eliminate all your data, and also can use your logo for promotional tasks without asking. If they reserve the right to cut users off at any time, they’re not a reliable service.
Wright said that customers want choice “A lot of us [cloud providers] drive that choice away… [Customers] don’t want to be tied to a hoster for life.” Open source increases choice, and when developing clouds interoperability must be kept in mind.
And it doesn’t necessarily make it easy for customers to switch to another provider — in fact, as Vann noted, being able to move data and services provides the security needed by numerous companies. “Many enterprises we know have more than one cloud provider… They have many different hosters doing different things.” The key issue, according to Vann, is that customers maintain security and they can move their data as they want.
Rivington noted, as his company was just recently bought by CA, that CA has always worked in the enterprise space, but it is obviously making some changes to reflect the new realities of this space. “The world is moving to a service provider model in one way or another,” he said. If the big players end up in the service provider space, however, it’s still not what they’re providing but how they’re providing it.
For instance, Faceboook attracts a market that doesn’t care about service. It can go down and users will simply do something else. There is no accountability, but also it’s not setup for business use. Rivington notes that there are not only business reasons for having a fair contract with a service provider, but also legal obligations. “Until there is an enterprise-class cloud like that, then service providers should not have to be concerned.”
So, bottom line, a cloud lock-in means that you’re loosing customers. Keeping clouds open and free will ensure that the direction of the cloud paradigm as it moves forward will be one that remains relevant.
