political situations: The Cloud - Huge Upcoming Change in Computing

One of my favorite areas of research at the MIT Data Center Program (2003 - 2009) involved cloud computing.

Most of my work was with co-authors Hyoung-Gon (Ken) Lee and Stuart J. Allen and involved novel ways of linking mathematical models and data together using the Internet along with new approaches to computer semantics. Some of the base of this work was the M Language co-developed with David Brock. This is an early paper on our ideas relating to business systems:

Lee, H-G and E.W. Schuster , "MRP as a Service: An Alternative Way to Execute Models for Business Processes." E-Mail Advisor (November 2007).

(Published by the Cutter Consortium: Arlington, MA)

This is another early paper that represented several years of research. It won the Plowman Award in 2004 given by the Council for Supply Chain Management Processionals.

Brock, D.L., E.W. Schuster, S.J. Allen, and P. Kar, “An introduction to semantic modeling for logistical systems,“ Journal of Business Logistics 26, no. 2 (2005), pp 97 – 117.

From the beginning, I was convinced that Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud technology would radically change business computing. Based on the theory of the M Language, we prototyped three applications. These are now being spun out to industry through the MIT Technology Licensing Office. This link provides more information:

One Page Descriptions of MIT Software Licenses

A recent article does an excellent job of analyzing the direction of cloud computing. This is the reference:

Veverka, Mark, 2010. A private party. Barron's, Oct. 24.

Mr. Veverka writes that some technical aspects of cloud applications are advancing much more quickly than anticipated, thus accelerating a shift to utility based computing where third party data centers do processing on demand for a variable fee based on usage. This is a radical change for corporate IT systems. The following quote outlines the implications:

"Such economics, says Price, could mean the most dramatic transformation of enterprise technology in 20 years arrives ahead of schedule. It would be comparable to the disruption caused when client-server personal-computer systems surpassed mini-computers and big-iron mainframes." Bold added

While cloud computing will lower costs for corporations there is a huge downside, namely weak demand for hardware, software, personnel, and technical services. This leads one analyst to make a dim assessment:

"'It's possible that we could see another nuclear winter in tech spending,' says Walter Price Jr., who has been managing technology funds for more than 25 years." bold added

I know that many traditional enterprise software vendors have resisted the move to cloud computing products because the profit margins are much lower. However, I think eventually cloud computing will win out.

For who are interested in more information about cloud computing and some aspects of our work at MIT, please see the following links from my blog:

Update - The M Language and Agriculture

More about Aggeos, Inc.

AgMES

Abstract for Our Paper

Machine Understandable Semantics

Google, Metaweb, and our Research in Semantics and Syntax

The New Writing

An Idea for Future Publication

Semantics and Models

Semantic Enterprise

Update on OSMPS