Larry Ellison, in one of the interviews, said that super computer is nothing but grid computing. In response, John Chambers said that super computer is nothing but network of computers. Salesforce.com made a comment that super computer is network computer on the cloud where the end-users get the power of super-computing without the hardware, database, networking, or the like.
I have been a big fan of XaaS (Anything as a service) since the first time I opened my email account almost a decade ago. Only that I did not know that internet was combination of all the above on the cloud. I was just happy to see things move, on black and white monitor looking at US news on yahoo.com far in south-east, 12,000 miles away from USA.
Here is an interesting thought I discussed with my fellow product manager Erin, at Adept. The trend in the market has been that anything that can be used as a service, hosted, uses the power of cloud, and operates through any mobile device, will attract lot of interest not just from early adapters, but from the target market. This product could be anything from a IT infrastructure management solution, database, ERP applications, email, single-sign-on, web 2.0 initiatives or even in robotics.
Some of the most successful products are the ones that act as a platform and not pretend to be the whole solution itself. Android, iOS, salesforce, Microsoft Excel, or Windows are some of the great platforms that enable to build their solutions augmenting the platform. If one is looking to write the product vision, having this thought of making it a core platform, where others can make it their custom solution by making small changes or building a solution, is a good idea.
I guess new billion dollar companies in five years will be the ones giving platforms on the cloud as a service in the IT 2.0 world.
Sridhar Karnam 