This book – The Future Arrived Yesterday – by Michael S. Malone – is a proposal by the author (I keep writing doctor as I’m in the hospital and I’m tired when I writing this) on how to re-structure corporations to handle the changes in the future. He proposes a new structure – the “Protean” corporation – as an organizational structure to better adapt to the changing conditions in the future. A “Protean” corporation, according to the Michael S. Malone, is a corporate structure that has a more “permanent” core along with a more nebulous “cloud” that serves that core. View full article »
Tag Archive: Cloud
The news about Google is starting to get interesting – in terms of the scope of what they are addressing now. Google seems to be building a vertical stack of services to cover almost everything to do with the computer. This goes back to what Jeff Jarvis said – Google makes money when we use the web (advertising, advertising, advertising) – and faster means more:
- Google announced today they’re planning on testing out a new 1 gigabit internet service (http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi) – so they could be in the neighborhood soon.
- Google has a DNS service (http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/) – the magic thingy that translates the names we type in into the numbers that define the internet.
- Google has Gmail – it’s free web-based e-mail service. It has a corresponding calendar, contacts, etc. service. One concept of calendars is you can share them – have group calendars, etc.
- Google has it’s Google Docs – word, processing, spreadsheets, presentation, etc. – so you can do those basics online. View full article »
Google today announced their new “Nexus One” phone and one of the key points was the concept of buying the phone as unlocked. Buying it full price and choosing whatever carrier you want (in reality it’s only T-mobile and AT&T right now). This is not the normal model in the US – instead we pay a small fee (large to some of us) and sign a contract with a carrier. Then they basically pick up the rest of the cost of the phone over the course of the contract. View full article »
I was thinking today about the new decade (still hard to believe) but especially about digital pictures and video. I’ve loved going digital with pictures – as opposed to film (am I the only one who never got around to developing film?). I love the ability to take multiple pictures, to review them, to see them on the computer, make slideshows, and videos. I think it’s important to take these snapshots of our lives -as they’ll never occur again. View full article »
I’ve been hearing a lot lately about tablets – from Apple or Crunchpad (which is turning into a soap opera). In some ways they sound pretty cool – the form factor and a long battery life for a very portable device sound pretty neat (almost like a Star Trek Next Generation thing). However, netbooks are challenging the value proposition of a tablet – due to the price point. View full article »
I just read Planet Google by Randall Stross – a book about Google (can you Google about Google or would that cause some kind of time space distortion). The book starts with the beginning of Google – in the academic world – an takes us through a brief history of Google – in it’s different aspects – search, book search, Gmail, etc. Google started out small – but ambitious – to organize all information in the world.
I agree with the author – that Google’s timing was great – with the growth of cheap, but plentiful hardware, the explosive growth of web and the failure of it’s competitors. The book points out what I’ve heard before – that Google has and still values it’s engineers. Google seems to be a different company – less focused on money and shareholder value than other companies. It helps that their core search business is a major revenue source – simple but very profitable. This gives them a ton of cash to pursue other ventures – a luxury most companies don’t have.
