Rich Sharples' Blog » CogHead http://blog.softwhere.org Musings on the world of software from the sharp end of the long tail Sat, 27 Aug 2011 01:03:48 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Head in the Cloud http://blog.softwhere.org/archives/106 http://blog.softwhere.org/archives/106#comments Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:55:37 +0000 sharps http://blog.softwhere.org/?p=106 A couple of related articles hit my (nicely organized) feed reader this morning. First, Tim Bray paints a bleak picture of Google’s Developer Platform – some concerns I shared earlier. Meanwhile CogHead are in the news with their Open Definition model – an attempt to build an open and collaborative environment for CogHead customers. Interesting but CogHead is still fundamentally a sharecropping model – once you’ve committed to CogHead – your stuck with it. I’m not saying that’s all bad. It’s a tradeoff – leverage CogHead’s f5g awesome platform but box yourself in. Sound familiar ?

It’s interesting that we’re seeing (at least) three models emerge :

  • Amazon’s utility computing approach (they’re fundamentally a bandwidth, MIPS and storage utility) – you choose what platform you want to write to (Linux, Java, etc.);
  • the proprietary SaaS platform approach (SalesForce, CogHead – sorry guys). You trade convenience, agility for complete dependence on the vendor.
  • a hybrid – Google App Engine, Facebook. I don’t think these hybrids have anywhere near the ability to lock you in as much as the true SaaS platforms. For example – Google is based on Python, Django – if you’re smart you won’t get locked in. Many facebook apps. also support other ‘distributions’ – so it isn’t really a sharecropping model.

As I see it – the only thing that might lock you in to Google and Facebook’s model is convenient access to their huge customer base – that’s what they’re selling. Take it or leave it.

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