PaaS Is The Future Of Cloud Services: AppFog Adds Ruby And Node.js Support
Appfog (previous CloudAve coverage), the PaaS player previously known as PHPFog, today announced support for Ruby and Node.js on their platform. This is nothing new or surprising and I can even say that this completes the process of removing any differentiation in terms of language support among the PaaS providers (yeah, I know that there [...]
Acquia Gets Another Round Of Funding: Commercial Open Source Is Still Strong
Acquia (previous CloudAve coverage), the commercial company behind open source Drupal content management software, announced the completion of Series D round of funding worth $15 Million Dollars. This round was funded by Tenaya Capital along with significant follow up participation from their existing investors, Northbridge Venture Partners and Sigma Partners. Acquia will tap into this [...]
Soccer, Fail Whales and APIs
I played a good bit of soccer as a kid and even more in college. I mostly played defensive positions. One of the things I most appreciate about the game is that the smallest of errors can have game-changing impact. As a defensive player, an errant pass in the mid-field or a moment out of [...]
Platforms: Of Governance and Taxes
I like analogies. This week, Brad Burnham of Union Square Ventures wrote a thoughtful post based on an analogy between software powered platforms and governments. Bob Warfield of the SmoothSpan Blog did a follow-up post claiming that application developers should seek platforms that act like Switzerland; something Warfield has apparently been saying since 2007. The [...]
Twitter is No Longer a Platform
Twitter no longer deserves the label “platform”. There, I said it. Its recent decision to lock out third-party ad networks, combined with its clear move in to the edge application space fundamentally alter what Twitter is. It is no longer a platform for application developers to productize around core stream functionality and monetize the edge [...]
When Platforms Collide; Mobile and Payments
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post that covered my areas of investment interest for 2010. Three of the areas I find most interesting are the mobile ecosystem and the payments sector and the theme of “platform” business models. You can find that post here. The natural question I’ve since been asked is: “What [...]
The most important app on your phone
The last couple of days have seen a flurry of activity in mobile. Apple announced its response to Google’s acquisition of AdMob by acquiring mobile ad network, Quattro. Google announced the much awaited Google phone, the Nexus One. The bulk of the discussion has been around the mobile application battle between Apple and Google. Henry Blodgett thinks [...]
Areas I’m most likely to invest in during 2010
I have always been fairly thematic in my investment approach. For me, the process starts with identifying big markets that are either 1) emerging (and will therefore be created over the next several years) or 2) undergoing some structural shift that will enable new entrants to grab market share from incumbents. I have seen Companies succeed in [...]
So, You Want to be a Platform?
Everyone wants to be a platform these days. And they are popping up faster than I can keep track of them. Facebook became a platform, enabling application developers to develop on top of Facebook. Next came the iPhone. Salesforce.com offered Force.com as a platform. Twitter became a platform. A few weeks back PayPal became a platform. AmEx bought [...]
Looking At Platforms
Earlier this year at the Enterprise 2.0 conference “platform” was the name of choice. Seemingly every company I spoke to was a platform player. It seems the latest “fart on demand” iPhone application is a “platform for virtual flatulence generation”, that the latest Twitter clone with negligible uptake is “a platform for global collaboration” and [...]
Adobe's Hot Air x2
I’ve said it once, and if it was true while Adobe claimed 100 million installs, it’s just as true now that they claim 200 million. So why repeat myself, here’s the original. And yes, I might as well have tweeted this. Related posts: Adobe AIR now installed over 200 million times Adobe Releases Spreadsheet SaaS [...]
Platform Interoperability: Force.com Talks To Google App Engine
In my opinion, the future of Cloud Computing will be a more federated ecosystem than few players holding a monopoly kind of dominance. In such a federated ecosystem, interoperability becomes very important. I have emphasized the importance of interoperability many times in this space. Unless we have Clouds talking to one another, we will end [...]
Things You Can Learn at the Glue Conference
I’ve been working on an agenda update, and in doing so, I found myself re-discovering all of the things that I can learn about a Glue. Here’s a partial list: How Facebook is opening up their platform Why REST is the foundation for web oriented architecture Where identity is heading, and why it has to [...]
Sticky Platforms
This blog post about Leo Laporte’s strained relationship with Twitter has me thinking this morning. The post outlines the “dangers” of twitter (using the front men of Laporte and Dave Winer) as a “closed” or “centralized” system. Now, as a twitter user (and fan), I completely get the closed and centralized argument, but I think [...]
Adobe’s Hot Air
Adobe boasts record download and installation numbers for Flash and Air, and Venturebeat claims they are winning the platform race. But are they really “winning”? Some of the software Adobe makes is a MUST have on any computer, no matter how often you use it, just to allow basic browsing. The first time you can’t [...]
