You can take your data out, and shove it into another system.

But, they do want a tie in of sorts, that is how all software companies establish dominance, they normally hold it for a while until people in the opensource world, make the filters and translators.

Google will just monitor the situation, until they think they have to release the internal spec. But, I don't see too much of a lock in, getting the relationships between the data should be trivial as well, so the mechanics behind all of it is the selling point.

In-house is hardly a lock in either, there you own it kit and kaboodle. Businesses are not going to be using cloud computing for their core systems, they will use it to augment, and for marketing. It is the ISPs who should be a little concerned about cloud computing (the server ISPs), as that is the target really. It could make more sense running an ecommerce front end on the cloud, but a bit daft to stick up all your back end operation on the cloud.

Google is about information, people probably do have to start worrying just how much information that company can take, and they are not stupid, they have perhaps the best minds in IT and the largest hardware infrastructure. Their ability to connect the dots is phenomenal.

It is a shame no one else understands how to create a search engine, it is not too hard, but the real trick is accommodating the tech end, and the web site producers, and Google does that better than anyone else. The search is simple, but the real trick is on the other end, the data input.

Take Ask for example, excellent interface, lousy search engine, in as much as it is virtually impossible to get into. So, you don't tend to push their usage to people. And most of the other search engines are just running Goggle with their own front end.

So, it is not lock in I fear it is Google's mass appeal that is the problem, they will be hoovering up even more data now, but data that is very well organized as well, for inclusion into a database. They need some competition, otherwise they will know it all, and that's kinda worrying for any one company to be in that position.

Google is a 'for profit' company. One of its competetive advantage is the huge quantity of stuff it writes like Big Table. If they hand that over to everyone then where is their competetive advantage?

It's like asking a car manufacturer to hand over the blueprints to the new concept car a few months before the car show.

As a profit driven company they will make a profit driven decision. Will opening up the Big Table code get them more new customers (as they now feel more comfortable using it) than they would lose from the additional competition.

The other thing is that if they do open it up and it becomes a popular de facto standard in the SaaS world they are going to be inflicting large costs on their competitors. Google already has all their systems set up for Big Table. Amazon etc will have to invest money to convert or make their systems compatible to remain competitive.

There are reasons why Microsoft or Adobe, who no one will argue aren't out for profit, give out some of their software for free.

"Anonymous Coward so as not to be giving away ideas to our competition. :)" .... By Anonymous Coward Posted Thursday 26th June 2008 07:42 GMT.

Love the Tongue in Cheek Humour, AC, after such an informative post. And all data worth sharing to be made Real, travels in the Cloud and runs the Gauntlet of Peer Review and Modification just because IT can, and siloed datacentres then have no need to waste resources on unnecessary useless, metadata protection, thinking of later converting information into liquid profit, causing division and inequity...... Capitalism's "answer" to old and ancient and regal powers. And a miserable and pathetic clone it is too.

In a System, as is today, with ever increasing flows of Information, does the Machine become Dynamic with Time Zone Buffers being completely removed from the Big Picture.

Oh, I agree 100% that once the bugs are worked out of the ideas, say, in {n} years time, and everyone runs on these virtualized "clouds" run by various corporations that the "laughable idea" of monetizing other people's data will seem quaint...

...but for the Litte Guy right now it's the only way to play in the game. Do you know many people who work for Wal Mart? How about Telcos? Do you know many people who work for big chains, boxes, conglomerates etc? They aren't often treated well, or paid much. They are as disposable, replaceable and irrelevant as the customer data in cloud world.

Again you are correct in that the emergence and dominance of these mega-corporations is a modern aristocracy trying to recapture the utterly epic societal control and wealth of monarchies past. The issue is that, like the peasants of yesteryear, we have no choice but to keep our heads low, grab what we can, and hope not to anger the local lords.

Is monetizing user data a viable long term solution? No, it honestly isn’t. It might bring some added profitability to the small company for 5, 10 years, before it’s abandoned to a mega-corp. The beauty of IT-based micro-solutions like this for small companies trying to eek out a living is that IT works on 3-5 year hardware refresh cycles. When the cycles comes up, you simply ask yourself “stay in, or give the customers to someone else?”

As always, it’s about business decisions. If you don’t want to be a peasant for the new aristocracy by working as a faceless drone for a mega-corp, then you have to innovate more and faster than everyone else just to pay the bills.

We can't compete in a truely global economy...only the new aristocracy can do that, but if we play our cards right, treat local customers with dignity, and provide them the best widgets in the industry...we can avoid being a drone for another decade at least.

Anonymous Coward,

What you may have patently forgotten to factor into the melting pot, is that Virtualisation Applications are a whole new ball game to everyone, and there are no mega corporations at play in ITs Spaces, but a whole lot of Binary Thinkers researching the Space for the Fat Cat Shark mega corporation.

They are all at Sea in the computer-centric Virtual model for Input Instructions/Special Application of Programming and will lose their fortunes and dominating positions to Virtual Entities in the Cloud who will just appear out of nowhere with more money than they need, to take away all the money that their clients need/want from Establishment Sub-Prime Brokers and the Banking System.

And there is nothing that they can do to stop it happening because in CyberSpace and Virtualisation Environments, Transparency is King and Rules whereas Dodgy Deals Hidden in Secrets is the Idiot Norm they waste Time and Effort and Credibility on maintaining, merely to maintain the Old Ways which allow them Leverage/Control with Wealth.

The only currency in Virtualisation is Intelligence and Intelligence concludes that the Establishment Capitalist Model is Fundamentally Flawed. It is certainly easily cracked open and used and abused and whilst it remains in denial of its fate/destiny/future, will mounting greater losses and new names to the Great Game, change the Scenery.

SKETCHUP FOR LINUX, please.