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I'm sure, we're going to hear a lot about this concept in 2004, but for the most part it will probably remain only in the conceptual stage.
In its simplest terms, on-demand computing is a method of selling computing resources as if they were utilities like electricity or the telephone service. For example, to go online, you would turn on the ISP service and would be charged for the time you spend online, the bandwidth you consume and the drive space you occupy - all in one monthly bill. The workstations, PDAs or other devices you use would be rented and the charge added to your bill.
The big developers for on-demand include many familiar names: HP, Sun, IBM, Veritas and Microsoft.The hardware devices at the core of on-demand are storage servers, another sub-industry that is destined to grow in 2004. Although storage servers don't appear glamorous to most people, stock is going up for companies that are currently building them: TDK, Veritas, Network Appliance, EMC and Adaptec.
Storage server technology is referred to as NAS (Network Assisted Storage) and/or SAN (Storage Area Networking). The idea is to use multiple off-site servers to store company data via the TCP/IP protocol. A company employee can then access the data whether he or she is in the office or on the road. The companies can rent server time and space on an as-needed or on-demand basis, similar to time-sharing on mainframes.
EMC [emc.com], for example, is a leading supplier of enterprise data storage systems and software. Microsoft [microsoft.com] has made an arrangement this year with them to develop databases and portal server
interfaces. The interfaces would resemble Web sites.
For the present, Bill Gates [news.com.com] says that Microsoft will be using its .Net strategy (built on XML) for its storage server strategy. He cautions however that many potential customer for NAS or SAN do no want their data stored off-site. Consequently, Microsoft's plan is to convince companies that on-demand will lower their overall IT costs and free up budgets for development and other IT expenses.
On the other hand, some of the biggies aren't ready to rush into on-demand. Michael Dell [news.com.com] says that if his company "felt utility computing would save customers lots of money, we'd immediately have utility computing. But we don't believe that's the case...This issue of services versus boxes has become a critical one in the industry..." In other words, Dell feels that his computers already come equipped with enough "embedded services" that save his customers money.
In any case, I'm looking forward to some opinions on this subject. It's too early for most of us to have had an experience with on-demand, but I would like to hear from someone who has.
It's too much like computer bureaux from the 60's and 70's, when companies had a dumb terminal installed and rented time, programs and storage on the server. Soon as they could, companies would bring the service in house to stop paying the charges.
Basically all "network computing" and similar ideas are trying to re-invent computer bureaux - which is focusing on what is good for the supplier (regular income) rather than what is good for the customer (flat-rate known costs).
There will always be a subset of customers who can't afford the capital (or maintenance) costs of their own setup, but of potential computer users in western countries at current prices that must be a really small subset.
