Greetings. I had the priveledge of filling in for the CTO at my company and attending Internet Solutions Internetix 2006 on Thursday 20 July. It was held at the stunning BMW Pavilion at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. Brilliant keynote addresses by Clem Sunter from Anglo-American and the former head of SAB’s marketting department left us entertained, impressed and ready for a day of learning and inspiration.
One of the highlights for me was the Software as a Service and Internet Surfari sessions held after lunch. Software as a Service is best described as… well… Google. And now finally Microsoft. Its the age old, but yet to be cemented, concept of using all your software directly off the internet. No more CDs, no more downloads, just ActiveX, Ajax and some other nifty tools to get the party started – at a fee for Microsoft users, ofcourse.
The invited speaker mentioned how he’d managed to run a full day without using any software other than his Operating System (FreeBSD in this case) and demo’d some really interesting internet alternatives to traditional software.
Email: www.gmail.com
Powerpoint: www.thinkfree.com
Word Processor: www.writely.com
Spread-sheet: www.spreadsheets.google.com
Visio: www.gliffy.com
These are all Google’esque applications. Microsoft is coming to the new party as it were with their Windows Live initiative. They’ve moved Uncle Bill out and brought in Ray Ozzi as the new CTO as well as to totally redefine their engineering strategy and thus maintain their grip on the world market.
Dont get too excited yet…i predict another .NET frenzy like way back in the late 90s or early new millenium when the idea of Software on Demand was first truly put forward. While .Net did catch on in some of its business areas, it failed to impress in others. It did good things for Visual Studio and development platforms that could tie into the .Net paradym but at the end of the day… it was a branding and marketting idea. Is this WINDOWS LIVE initiative another one of these?