Back to a Web Hosted future.....

So...Nick Carr writes in the Grauniad:

In the past, software companies only had to concern themselves with writing code, copying their programs on to discs and selling them. It was up to the buyers of the software to maintain the computers, storage drives and all the other hardware needed to run the programs.

But the spread of the broadband internet, with its enormous capacity for transmitting data, is changing the way we think about and use software. We're not installing as many programs on our own computers as we used to. Instead, we're tapping into programs that are delivered through our web browsers. Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, World of Warcraft, Yahoo! Mail, Google Spreadsheets - those are just a few examples of the popular software programs that run mainly in distant data centres, on computers owned or leased by software companies.

Hmmmm...memories are short...anyone remember those Web 1.0 darlings Exodus Communications, or that Level 3, Qwest, UTC* and all were building datacentres, till there was a total glut of People Pimping Port, Power and Ping....and they all went bust.

But as we know, the 'Net never went away, even though a lot of the datacentres did....what would be interesting is to know if the total square feet running today is greater than the total square footage actually built out by 2002.

This trend, which started in the home, is now moving into businesses. Instead of installing pricey and finicky software on their own computers, companies are beginning to rent programs over the net for a monthly fee. Even sophisticated applications for maintaining customer accounts, tracking finances, managing workers and performing other complicated tasks are now being offered as web services. The burden of running software is shifting from the buyer to the seller.

With respect (I really enjoy reading Nick's stuff), but I think this is a slightly different issue to the datacentre argument...this is about what the datacentres are running today, which is more SOAS rather than a "Read/Write Web" as before, than it is about datacentres.

We tried to do this level of application hosting in the early 'noughties - anyone recall the ASP's - but it was damn hard then (we Had it Tough and the dial up connection made it largely a waste of time anyway.

Nick also writes:

Up till now, software businesses have had the luxury of not having to worry about the big investments in physical capital that have always characterised their industrial-age counterparts. But that's changing. The software business is coming down to earth.

Ummm...the whole point of the rise of the datacentre industry was to remove this problem from Web software companies. It is odd that Google etc still DiY this, I'd assume - now that the industry is coming back - that outsourcing ones' tins is going to become the standard again

So...in summary, I think Nick's hypothesis of a "big switch" tipping point - though more dramatic and no doubt great for book sales - is not quite correct...it's just that we had a little Data Business Dark Age so it looks like all this is new, but in fact its been quietly growing all the time.

*UTC = Uncle Tom Cobley and all....