Heads in the Clouds

More developments in the cloud computing space; plus subcontractors encounter problems with open source, the rise of the "socialprise" and Database-as-a-Service, xRM may trump CRM, and more software news of the week.

Forrester has done recent research into the big picture of the impact of Google Apps and other recent Google moves. The report concludes that collaboration software is taking off into cloud-based models and that the race for dominance there may be won by IBM/Lotus' Project Blue rather than Google or Microsoft. It also concludes that Google Apps could be a catalyst for the end of software as we know it — a move from enterprise computing to the "socialprise" (Enterprise 2.0).

HP just entered the fray, announcing its own virtualization or cloud services — to be marketed as HP Data Center Transformation.

SANDHILL.COM BLOG POST OF THE WEEK:

Broken Windows Revisited: Why Insecure Software and Security Products Hurt the Global Economy

Insecure software, and indeed the security products we use to protect software from exploitation, hurt our economic progress. Not only does it hurt the economic progress of the United States, but the rest of the world as well. This might sound nonsensical and hyperbolic at first. It is not. It is simple economics.

In Geekonomics: The Real Cost of Insecure Software, I argue that software vulnerabilities are the broken windows of cyberspace. Broken windows are significant in the eyes of criminologists. A broken window, if left unrepaired, sends a message of disorder into the community. This message of disorder invites greater elements of disorder and can, in the end, invite more serious forms of crime.