The top 12 gifts of cloud from 2010. What a year 2010 has been for cloud computing.
We've seen an amazing year of innovation, disruption, and adoption--one I personally think will go down in history as one of the most significant years in computing history. Without a doubt, a significant new tool has been added to the IT toolbox, and its one that will eventually replace most of the tools we know today. Don't agree with me? Well, with the help of my generous Twitter community--and in the spirit of the season here in the US--I've assembled 12 innovations and announcements from 2010 that had big impact on the IT market.
Take a look at these with an open mind and ponder just how much cloud computing changed the landscape through the course of the year: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Of course, these are just a few of the highlights from cloud's 2010. Who will be the small business software super-portal? Not Microsoft. Editor’s note: Brent Frei (pictured below) is the executive chairman and co-founder of Smartsheet.com, an online work management software company.
He also served as the chief executive of Onyx Software, a Bellevue-based customer relationship management (CRM) software company he co-founded in 1994, and as a programmer analyst at Microsoft, among many other roles. He wrote this column for VentureBeat.Back in 2001, I listened to Steve Ballmer predict that in five to 10 years, 40 percent of small business applications would be consumed via the cloud. He didn’t use the word “cloud” exactly, but he did talk about how Microsoft’s vision was to provide an online portal where customers could select and use business tools applicable to their role, and pay for just what they were using on a monthly basis.
Nearly nine years have passed and the prediction has been pretty much spot on. But who is fulfilling the vision? Here are the four foundational business application categories. I now pronounce you monetized: a YouTube video case study. (Cross-posted from the YouTube Biz Blog) Last week the world watched in wonder as Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz's wedding party transformed a familiar and predictable tradition into something spontaneous and just flat-out fun. The video, set to R&B star Chris Brown's hypnotic dance jam "Forever," became an overnight sensation, accumulating more than 10 million views on YouTube in less than one week. But as with all great YouTube videos, there's more to this story than simple view counts. At YouTube, we have sophisticated content management tools in place to help rights holders control their content on our site. The rights holders for "Forever" used these tools to claim and monetize the song, as well as to start running Click-to-Buy links over the video, giving viewers the opportunity to purchase the music track on Amazon and iTunes.
So, what does all of this mean?