Page 38 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

MANA GEMENT STRATEGIES F O R THE CL OUD R EV OL UTION

We’re now in the second phase of the Internet, where
browser windows occasionally show glimmers of intelligence.
If you give it some bits, it gives you an airline ticket, an iTune,
or a completed order for a bestseller from Amazon or B&N
.com on a somewhat individualized basis. To accomplish that,
the browser window is no longer a static device; small pro-

grams run in it, accomplishing work that the end user has
directed, and those programs send instructions to the server
and return responses. This is sometimes referred to as the sec-
ond phase of Internet computing or Web 2.0, where the end
user offers more inputs to the Internet server.
But with the cloud, a third phase has arrived in which the
end user can gain “programmatic control” over the powerful

server at the other end, if she chooses to. The end user con-
nection is moving toward a peer relationship with the server
at the other end.
With programmatic control, the user can tap into and make
greater use of all kinds of powerful services that are being built
and will be built. Instead of just filling in blanks on a form, the
Internet user in the future will send the server instructions on
what he would like to do, add his data, select from a list of serv-
ices, and proceed to manipulate the results. He might even

modify the existing services on the fly from his handheld com-
puter, sending the server a bit of his own code telling it what to
do. No human has intervened to authorize him to do what he
is doing or to explain to him what restrictions apply. On the
contrary, if he wants more power, he gets it for a small fee.
Indeed, the user can send the cloud a workload that he’s
created and instruct it when and how to run that workload.

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