Computing, a new public utility of the 21st century, Part 2

From the economic, the web evolutionary, the societal, and the technological perspectives, the computing as a utility has already begun.

This is the part 2 of a three-installment mini-series.

Part 1: a broad view of public utilities

Part 2: another thinking of the mobile web and the apps



The rise of the mobile web and the prevalence of the mobile apps combine to be the most significant phenomenon about the Web since the hype of Web 2.0. Based on a recent report from TheNextWeb, 31% of the 5 billion mobile phone users in 2010 accessed the web through their phones. The analysts predicted that in as early as 2014 the total number of global mobile Internet users would be equal to the total number of desktop Internet users. According to the data by Business Insider in March, from June 2009 to March 2001 the number of iPhone apps increased 7 times and reached the total number of 350K. During the same time period the number of apps on Android increased 50 times and reached beyond the total number of 250K.

What does this phenomenon represent? Among the many people have explained it based on four typical perspectives.

Economically the mobile web rises due to the economic need. Fred Wilson declared that "the mobile economics will trend toward Web economics". The mobile web business is what the Web business extends itself to the mobile phones for the convenience of the customers. Although cautiously I disagree to Wilson's corollary that "the business models that don't work well on the web will not work well in mobile in the long run", sincerely I am inclined to his prediction that the size of the mobile web business will be "even bigger and more exciting" than the desktop web business we have experienced.

Evolutionarily the Internet demands new types of links to grow. Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff claimed that the rise of the mobile web was one indicator to "the Web is dead". "The rise of machine-to-machine communications", Anderson wrote, "... is all about control." Web 2.0 brings the Web users closer to each other. The mobile web, by contrast, brings the users' computing closer to the respective service computing providers. Through the mobile apps the direct links between the service providers and the service consumers are established and enhanced. With these new strong connections the Internet was woven to be more diverse in the style of its links.

Societally we are able to get to the more delicate details of our society through the mobile apps. Ed Schipul emphasized that the mobile web equaled to a new way of communication in his public presentation "Mobile Web: How the impact of the iPhone will change Communications". Through the mobile web, the unspeakable living context is added to the social networks. The mobile web is a natural extension of Web 2.0 that is dedicated to the discovery and enhancement of the interpersonal relationships in our society.

Technologically it is a new gadget revolution that makes us live better. The prevalence of the mobile apps has updated the vision from software as a service (SaaS) to mobile as a platform. The quick adoption of iOS and Android indicates us a new era of information technology. They are not another operating system. They represent a technological revolution that liberates us from the sole binding to the computers for knowledge calculation.

Behind the four explanations it is the shift of computing from the local computers to the cloud as an utility.

Because of the computing as an utility, we are able to invent the new, less-powerful gadgets such as the smart phones to handle the more and more sophisticated demands of information calculation. This is the technological impact.

Because the new information-computing gadgets are smaller and less powerful, which means cheaper, more users are actively involved into the tide of information creation. More delicate details of our social life are digitized by the small gadgets. This information is then sent to the more powerful cloud and executed by the utility. This is the societal impact.

Because the demands are generated by the gadgets while the solutions are provided by the utility, the Internet is evolving toward an enhanced web whose new links directly connect the demands and the solutions. This is the web evolutionary impact.

And at last, because of all of the above computing becomes more efficient and more effective by the form of being an utility. In consequence we can use it to produce more output that satisfies our economic needs. This is the economic impact.

The cloud computing at present is still on its very early stage. Let it alone the computing as a utility in its ultimate form. But as we discussed in this post, the process of computing to be a utility is already inevitable by the mean of technology, by the mean of societal influence, by the mean of web evolution, and by the mean of economy. It is only a matter of when in contrast to a matter of whether or not.

Summary

In the first installment of the series we studied that in theory computing is eligible to be a utility. In the second installment we discussed how the process of computing being a utility had already begun. In the next installment we will then share how the world and our life would be after the computing as a utility comes true.

Computing, a new public utility of the 21st century, Part 1

Computing is qualified to be a public utility of the 21st century; and it is good if it comes true.

This is the part 1 of a three-installment mini-series.

Part 1: a broad view of public utilities

A public utility represents an infrastructure that serves a general demand of the public. The typical general demands include such as the demand of water supply, the demand of power supply, the demand of waste disposal, the demand of transportation, the demand of remote communication, and the demand of safety. Respectively we have the public utilities such as water, electricity (and natural gas), sewage, road (and rail), post (and phone), and police services.

Because of public utility ordinary people as well as the businesses may reach their general demands in low cost. Take the demand of power supply as the example. Before electricity became a public utility, power supply for not only the ordinary persons but also the businesses was expensive. In consequence, both the intensively energy-consuming personal gadgets and the intensively energy-consuming businesses were economically infeasible in society. After the invention of electricity distribution network, electricity became a new public utility of the 20th century. With the significantly lowered cost of power supply, many cutting-edge energy-consuming personal gadgets and factories rose from the horizon. It was the last great industry revolution.

But it is not to say that any general demand is suitable to be a public utility. Let's take a look at two examples.

The general demand of food supply is rarely implemented as a public utility. Comparing to the demands such as water supply or power supply, the food supply is too diverse in its demand. Different people often have varied requests on the food they demand. As the result, unless it is in some toughest time of history (such as during the war time when the general demand of food supply is generally reduced to be bread only) few governments take the demand of food supply to be a public utility.

Another typical example is the general demand of marriage. Although certainly everybody expects a spouse, never have this demand been a public utility. The reason is similar. Everybody has his (or her) unique preference. Such a demand is infeasible for a public utility solution.

With these insights we may start to study the other general demands and see whether they are feasible to be a public utility. Let's begin with a controversial topic---the general demand of healthcare. Shall our society be dominated by the government-run hospitals or the government-operated health insurance? The answer shall be no. The demand of healthcare is similar to the demand of food supply. The demand is general to everybody. But at the same time it is also too diverse in the demand with respect to the individuals. Government must initiate a few special programs for taking care of the health of the low-income people. It is the same as government has already provided special food supply programs for the low-incomes. But it is not a good idea to make the general demand of healthcare be a public utility, which would be equivalent for us to have made the general demand of food supply be a public utility.

Finally we are able to touch the theme---the demand of information computation. Based on what we have studied, we shall answer two questions in order to determine whether computing would be qualified for a new public utility. (1) Is the demand of information computation general to the public? And (2) are the requests from people in this demand too diverse to be handled by a public utility?

Since the invention of personal computer and World Wide Web, our society has already entered the information age. The digitized information is flooding over the daily life of many of us. Nowadays few people claim too little information to look at. By contrast, we often complain there are too much information but too limited ability to digest. The demand of information computation has been general to most of the ordinary people of our society.

Simultaneously digital data representation is gradually becoming uniform. After decades of studies the data storage at the physical layer has already been unified. We can now indistinguishably access the data stored in varied devices that are produced by different manufactures. Even at the presentation layer, due to the efforts of the Semantic Web and the linked data initiatives the data representation is approaching a common standard across the Web. All these achievements lays the foundation for implementing the general demand of information computation to become the new public utility of computing.

Summary

This first installment explains briefly why computing is qualified and good in theory to be a new public utility in the 21st century. The next installment will continue the topic by illustrating the Web evolutionary trend how computing is actually approaching to be a public utility.

A metaphor why cloud computing is inevitable

Cloud computing is an infrastructure that collaboratively computes any user-assigned task through all available Internet services. The name "cloud" is a metaphor for the Internet. Cloud computing is also the Internet-based computing.

There are many skeptics of cloud computing. Nicolas Carr mentioned a few in one of his recent posts. Within the comments of Nick's article, however, there are more. Some people believed cloud computing to be nothing more than a marketing term (and they talked about Web 2.0 the same way until now, didn't they?), while some others doubt whether cloud computing could be realistic since "If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software." Does this last accusation sound familiar? I bet.

History is repeating itself now and in the following let us see how.

From manorial economy to modern economy

Once upon a time, manorial economy was dominating. The manorial economy or the style of economic self-sufficiency was popular in both of the western and oriental feudal societies. Under this type of economy, people produce and then consume the stuff they produced nearly all by themselves. Goods exchange happens rarely in this type of economic system.

Then there is modern industrial economy, in which nearly no one may survive solely independent to the others. The input of one company is generally the output of another company unless it takes pure natural resources as the input. In the latter case, however, the company must produce something that is needed by another company or the end consumers (people) in contrast to self-sufficiency. Otherwise the company still cannot survive in the modern economy. In general there is no economic self-sufficiency in modern economy because everyone depends on somebody else.

Now here comes the question: how could this change occur? By revising the previous accusation for cloud computing just a little bit, we may get the following one.

If you use a trademarked product (proprietary program) or somebody else's product line (web server), you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that product (software).

This is right. When our ancestors were trying to abandon the manorial economy and enter the modern economy, they were accused by the exact argument before. So nothing is truly new.

If we take this great transition of economic forms that had already happened in history as a metaphor, it is much easier for us to see the inevitableness of cloud computing. Moreover, this metaphor should have been strong enough to claim that cloud computing is way beyond a marketing term; it is a revolutionary CHANGE.

Lessons learned

So what do we have learned? Change is uneasy, especially to the ones who have benefited from the old format.

Actually few companies is actively anticipating this change now. Traditional firms such as Microsoft and Oracle still are living in their old dream of dominating the market through the proprietary standard policy. They are the old-style manor owners. Newer companies such as Google are acquiring every profitable new innovation into their own territory though they claim to support open standards. They are the new-style manor owners. Therefore, despite both Microsoft and Google speak about cloud computing, what they are doing is enlarging their manors, either in old style or in new style. They are pushing modern economy under the cover of manorial economy. By this mean, it might not be wrong by saying cloud computing to be just a "marketing term." None of the big players at this moment are sincerely preparing for the coming of the true cloud computing because it violates their present interest.

However, history never lies. If only we go over the history of the break of manorial economy in western society or the failure of economic self-sufficiency in China, we must have learned that this change is inevitable disregarding the willingness of the big players at the meantime. Resisting on the change will only lead to the ineluctable failure of the once-glory big names themselves.