When I was a college senior, I was at a career fair and at the Xerox booth, a recruiter was encouraging me to enter my information on their workstation. I said with all naivety, "Oh yeah, it's just like the Apple's we have at school".
Whoops. Mistake. Big mistake.
Xerox Guy was, to be kind, HIGHLY displeased. "No kid! It's NOT like the Apple! Apple is like OURS!" The rest of the rant...well, it was barely printable. Suffice to say that I got a rapid education in how Xerox pioneered a technology that Apple effectively marketed and expanded. Talking with others later (seems that I wasn't the first person to stumble into that bear trap), we were tempted to chalk it up to one part bitterness, and one part frustration that the pioneer gets the arrows, while the second wave of settlers makes the cash.
This fond memory came to mind when remembering one of the more interesting moments in the cloud world last year: Larry Ellison's rant again cloud computing. You can watch it here - I give this to Larry, he's entertaining whether you agree with him or not.
However, what Larry doesn't mention (why would he, he was on a roll) is that he did try a concept known as the "network computer" around a decade ago.
Here's how the NC2 was described back in 1999: "Ellison underlined the network computer's practicality, saying that upgrading the new machines will be as easy as swapping an Ella Fitzgerald CD with one by Miles Davis.
Unlike Wall Street, computing industry analysts voiced skepticism similar to concerns raised when the network computing idea was originally put forth. Kevin Restivo, an analyst at IDC Canada, predicted that Ellison will still have a tough time convincing many corporate customers that their users don't need a full-blown PC.
"He's trying to dispel the PC as a computing method, but the challenge is that there's still a level of functionality that people demand," he said.
Ironically, Ellison himself conceded that the network computer concept is somewhat overblown, as it will be used like such appliances as a television set, telephone or handheld to use the Web.
"Everybody gets so fascinated by this device," he said of the network computer. 'The interesting part is the Internet.' (Emphasis is mine.)
Sadly, the concept didn't work. Ellison lost $175 million over four years, and Oracle ended the grand experiment in 1999. But as Wired magazine said: "Just as [Ellison and Farzad Dibachi] predicted, a wave of cheap, underpowered computers with small hard drives and omnipresent Internet connections did challenge the traditional PC. Ellison’s vision of widget-based online software has become conventional wisdom. The network computer failed as a product and as a business, but it seeded an idea — and a group of technologists — that would go on to remake the computing world."
Of course this doesn't stop Oracle from working within the cloud in its own way be it with Amazon, or "grid computing", which is not considered "true" cloud computing, but for the life of me, I'm not sure why. Distributed computers acting in concert that could be geographically dispersed - hmm...
InfoWorld's David Linthicum felt that while Ellison's history lesson was factually correct, he misses the point on new cloud innovations such as IaaS and SaaS, which are great fits for the precursor thin client that Ellison attempted to sell 10 years ago.
Yes, "Cloud" is an inclusive term, but not just of technologies that existed, but of newer ones that have been developed. For example, Salesforce.com might have existed for a while before the cloud, but has laughed all the way to the bank as a SaaS, passing the $1 billion mark in revenue in 2009. Microsoft's Azure did not exist even six months ago as a IaaS (or even PaaS depending on how you view it), but it won't being going anywhere any time soon.
Larry, relax. You lost the battle, but your vision will win the war. Take a bow.
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