back to article Tech titans sell yesterday's idea wrapped in tomorrow's dream

News flash: Oracle and SAP are both "cloud washers" who pretend to have sexy, cool technology, but actually are encumbered by legacy systems. This is the charge that cloud consultant David Linthicum and Deal Architect founder Vinnie Mirchandani level against the two giants, but one wonders why they bother. It's standard …

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  1. Tank boy
    FAIL

    This is a first

    Waited until the end to promote Apple. Maybe they'll swoop in and fix this cloud thingy? The CLOUD is snake oil, and if Apple goes whole hog into it, that will just be the official stamp that it isn't a real solution. Go cash your fucking check, because you must be one of their paid shills.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: This is a first

      Don't see the point of mentioning Apple, it's a bit like apples and oranges, Apple don't do enterprise.

      1. Code Monkey

        Re: This is a first

        Don't see the point of mentioning Apple

        SEO?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This is a first

      > A risk-taker like Apple might be willing to build a new category of technology that potentially cannibalises its existing business (the iPad versus the Mac), but Oracle and its ilk aren't risk-takers.

      Well, Apple are on their third attempt at "The Cloud", which they keep failing miserably at, and iCloud is badly crippled by design is generally seen as pretty poor. Looking forward to their attempt at Enterprise cloud.

      I don't know why 10gen lets this retard shill post on El Reg under their name.

  2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Thumbs up.

    Not just the software dinosaurs, it's the hardware vendors too. Overnight, kit and software was bundled up into "Cloud" offerings, nothing having changed other than a new layer of marketing. "Cloud" is, has always been, and always will be, nothing new. The test for this is simple - name one technology that is core to Cloud that did not exist before and cannot exist without Cloud.

    1. Fatman
      Thumb Up

      Re: Thumbs up.

      Can I make just one small correction?

      This sentence is missing a word, which I have added in bold.

      Overnight, kit and software was bundled up into "Cloud" offerings, nothing having changed other than a new layer of marketing bullshit.

      FTFY

  3. ACx

    The "cloud" is the very definition of yesterday's idea wrapped in tomorrows dream. Its little more than FTP and terminals.

    1. Anonymous Dutch Coward

      "Oracle and SAP aren't delivering true cloud technology"

      ACx is correct: "cloud" is recycling old, well known, even *yikes* succesful concepts (horses for courses though).

      The problem is every marketing department has its own definition.

      Very interesting to hear why whatever Oracle and SAP are delivering isn't "true cloud technology"...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cloud cloud cloud.

    When was infrastructure as a service not considered cloud by anyone's washy definitions.

    1. frank ly

      Re: Cloud cloud cloud. - I like cloud.

      Cloud cloud ........ cloud, wonderful Cloud. Cloud cloud ........ cloud, superlative Cloud. etc.

      (You know the tune.)

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    The whole cloud is the old "time-sharing" systems repackaged with a sexy name

    The whole cloud is just the old "time-sharing" systems repackaged with a sexier name. Often running on that "legacy old rubbish" Unix repackaged as Linux - by companies like those Asay worked for. So where''s the innovation and the innovators?

    It's just the actual small players in the cloud business are very afraid the heavy gorillas are entering their market - and kick them away.

    Apple knew iPhone and iPads wouldn't have cannibalized its Mac market that much - I can't see any heavy Photoshop or Illustrator user starting using an iPad for that... Apple wasn't bold, it was just smart enough to understand there was a new market to cover. Let's see when Apple will be bold enough to enter the low margin server market... and build its own cloud on them.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Question ?

    Which is precisely why CIOs don't mind buying their cloud-washed, "open" products

    I agree that the Tech Titans marketing just repackages old technology as shiny new things. But would ask what "open" products don't also fall into this category?

    1. Fatman
      FAIL

      Re: Question ?...marketing just repackages old technology as shiny new things

      I bet that marketing must buy this by the semi load:

      http://www.guffsturdpolish.com/default.php

  7. Philip Lewis

    Not in this lifetime

    "Let's see when Apple will be bold enough to enter the low margin server market... and build its own cloud on them."

    That will be never, then ...

  8. M.D.
    Mushroom

    Save me from the old days please !!!

    Ok now everyone has got their dose of "Those were the Days" mania, let's have some reality shall we...

    First off, to *anyone* who tells me that the consumer-level ease of a service like DropBox is "little more than FTP and terminals". Are you mad?! FTP may be ok for us sad tech-types but, did you every have to train an end-user is FTP useage? Were you confident they wouldn't end up deleting entire branches of a company website? Do you enjoy using a clunky text interface? Oh, i could go on and on with this one. The point is, modern Cloud services are easier, faster, more intuitive and more fun to use than ever before, which is why 100's of millions now use them in every business context imaginable.

    Second point - so, Cloud is "time-sharing with a sexier name"?! Right, so when you were a SysAdmin for a mainframe using clunky old time-sharing to manage user access you had tens of millions of users? Er, no you didn't - because mainframe systems' time-sharing at the user-level were simply not configured for those levels and could not be managed due to their time-intensive setup (hence the requirement for entire flipping DP teams and the endlessly annoying calls at stupid hours because someone who was insufficient.y trained had cocked up a user - again!). Time sharing in the context of processor sharing on the other hand, is something that has always been here - the point with Cloud is its ability to be used & consumed automatically, easily, confidently & competently at a far lower cost.

    Third, I think the author was simply using Apple as an example of a company who wouldn't blow it's entire bottom line if it were to break into a new operating/business model, i would say its disingenuous to let the onversation degrade into an Apple snarl-fest - replace with Google if it makes you feel better

    Oh my Gawd people, stop whining about what's gone before - do you really think its comparable to the ease, sophistication & automation of cloud based systems. I dont and i reckon I'm as long in the tooth as the rest of you, given i was working on Mainframes in 1979. Yup, it's been done before but it ain't better, ask anyone holding a 19th century Colt Revolver who's facing off against someone with an M4 Assault Rifle (after all they ARE both guns that fire more than one bullet!!!!!)

    On the authors' assertion - he's bang on WRT SAP, Oracle and etc - who should be looking at Cloud and thinking "is this my Novell moment". Incumbent companies have always struggled to wash their wares with the latest paradigm, the truth is the new players will continue to take market share away from them; those who go 'safe' will lose competitive advantage to those who are prepared to absorb new Cloud methods into their business processes - and they won't be thinking about FTP when their doing it!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Save me from the old days please !!!

      There are many FTP clients that let you use your remote FTP server as if it is a disk or folder, c'mon. I rarely today use command line FTP. And we could talk about WebDAV as well. When Google released GMail, there were utilities to use it as a remote disk as well. The success of DropBox now is just because people start to have more devices all connected, something you didn't have a few years ago and thereby no need of remote shared storage.

      Mainframes in the '60s had the equivalent of today "millions of user" - that was the computing power and bandwidth available. But the model is the the same, you have more computing power than you need, thereby you rent it to somebody who needs it to make money, and if you make money you add more to get more users and so on. And the end user has little hardware to pay for and manage. Nothing new under the Sun - and everything mostly running on some *nix still... sure, it can work, you can make a lot of money, but please, don't tell me it's a big innovation, it's just an old model with some updated technology in it. The same thing SAP, Oracle, etc. are doing, add some updated technology to their actual products and rent them through the Internet. Especially since actual products are usually so powerful - hardware and software - that most users have much longer upgrade cycles, and thereby it's better to rent something in a cloud for a yearly fee that wait users to upgrade and get no money meanwhile...

      1. M.D.
        Holmes

        Re: Save me from the old days please !!!

        "There are many clients that let you use your remote FTP server ... Disk or folder" Agree, but not so many consumers use them or would treat them with anything other than fear

        "when Google released GMail" ... They implemented a Cloud model (SaaS) - and opened the door to millions of folks to get easy email & storage

        "Mainframes in the 60's had the *equivalent*..." (my emphasis) - hmm, but they didn't actually Implement to millions, the 'model' (multi-user) may similar but the implementation is vastly different

        The innovation is to take the technologies/capabilities previously in the domain of the 'technorati' & deliver it to the majority. Simple for businesses, easy for consumers & quick to deploy - none of those elements were the case in the glorious past.**

        Cloud will act as an enabler for emerging business models that are far more organic than traditional company structures.

        (**oh, and they hadn't fixed ringworm either ;-)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I don't wish to be rude ..

          I don't wish to be rude but you are spouting marketing waffle. An application running on a virtual machine in some 'cloud' isn't going to run any more organically, whatever that's supposed to mean. If anything, management will see it as a means to exert more central control of their employees than before.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Modern Cloud services?

      "modern Cloud services are easier, faster, more intuitive and more fun to use than ever before, which is why 100's of millions now use them in every business context imaginable"

      A remote desktop app using the browser as interface, the app being run in some kind of distributed virtual OS environment. It removes responsibility for installing and maintaining your own servers, and outsources to a third party, who make money through economies of scale and renting you the service. You still need people to install and configure server apps and maintain client desktops, and be prepared for some downtime.

  9. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Pearls before swine, Matt?

    Nice one, Matt. I agree.

    And obviously, as evidenced by some of the comments pooh-poohing Cloud, do some have no idea about what is going in the sector and what can be done with command and control of it and IT.

    1. Tank boy
      FAIL

      Re: Pearls before swine, Matt?

      Keep your precious digits in the cloud. When you can't access them, go to your back-ups, which is what the cloud is for. Paying for the same thing twice is idiotic, and I further suspect you're selling the same snake oil as the author.

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.*

        Keep your precious digits in the cloud. When you can't access them, go to your back-ups, which is what the cloud is for. Paying for the same thing twice is idiotic, and I further suspect you're selling the same snake oil as the author. ….. Tank boy Posted Friday 25th January 2013 04:16 GMT

        Your suspicions are totally wrong, Tank boy, on a number of counts and issues. I aint selling snake oil of any description …… and one buys into Cloud and ITs Enigmatic Knowledge Streams and Enlightened Dark Matter Secrets if one needs SMARTR Enabled Enabling Devices and Virtual Machinery with Total Information Awareness in Sectors of IT Command and Control ….. which ideally, for unbelievably RapidE Progress into the Future and New Orderly World ProgramMING Projects, is a simple process of just sharing Advanced IntelAIgents ReSearch in words which SMARTR Beings and the Intellectually Challenged and Intelligence Communities can harvest to more easily understand what is going in the sector and what can be done with Command and Control of it and IT.

        *http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/quotes/Mark-Twain-quotes.html

        1. Tank boy
          Facepalm

          Re: Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.*

          Please enlighten the unwashed masses as to what you do when the Cloud provider is down for routine maintenance. Go to your in-house back-ups? Paying twice for the same redundancy is lunacy, and for a small to mid-size business is just bleeding money. Peddle your snake oil elsewhere, I'll stick to things that I actually have control over.

          1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

            Re: Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.*

            I'll stick to things that I actually have control over.

            Run your own electric plant, do you? Have your own global network so you can avoid the Internet? Refine your own gasoline? Run your own shipping service? Pump and purify your own water?

            Utilities exist for a reason - the economic advantages of scale outweigh the risks of reduced control. That will be the case for many (obviously not all) IT applications; it's the case now for some of them, and more will fall into that category as utility ("cloud") computing becomes more reliable and prices drop.

            Yes, it's essentially the same arrangement as the mainframe service bureau of yore. And it will continue to be successful for the same reason. Personal computers created a temporary anomalous situation, where popularity and commodification drove equipment prices down and features up so rapidly that owning lots of your own equipment had a clear economic advantage, in most cases, over leasing time. But the pendulum is swinging back the other way.

            You may not trust these newfangled horseless carriages, but that opinion is irrelevant in the market. Money is going to drive most of these decisions. Nor is it a hallmark of IT purity; unless and until you have a detailed threat model comparison that quantifies the relative risks of utility versus in-house computing for your applications, you're just waving your flag.

            Personally, I have no preference for or against utility computing in general, because such a preference is groundless in the general case. Free email for casual users is a rather different application from maintaining medical data or running an automated assembly line, and those different applications have different requirements and cost and risk profiles.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Pearls before swine, Matt?

      I suspect 'Matt` is thinking, please don't be on my side ...

  10. Mike S

    Why

    Why would I need a massively distributed ERP system, and why should SAP fear one?

    Sure, cloud is the marketing term du jour, but "real cloud" isn't a panacea.

    If you have a big enterprise, you have lots of uses for a system of record, and it won't need to scale out over a great huge cloud. You'll have plenty of uses for SQL databases too. SAP and Oracle are trembling all the way to the bank.

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