Does AT&T Even Know What Cloud Computing Is?

AT&T (T) yesterday announced a cloud computing initiative called Synaptic Hosting. But its unclear what's new from Ma Bell, and it raises the question of whether AT&T even knows what cloud computing is. In fairness, though, the new technology means different things to different people. Fortunately, the brilliant Irving Wladawsky Berger has been wrestling with its meanings.

A couple of weeks ago, Berger argued that these new cloud services will be distinct for being "simpler, safer, and smarter." And then, yesterday, Berger elaborated on the apparent confusion while striving to offer five clear principles.

1. Well designed consumer and business services -- Such as Google Maps.
2. The evolution of the Internet -- Cloud computing should be viewed as the Web's next technological advancement.
3. Massive scalability -- Cloud computing should support billions of people, connect them to their devices as well as devices to devices.
4. Well engineered cloud delivery centers --  Many data centers are still in a "pre-industrialization" stage and need to be redesigned.
5. Relevance of cloud computing to most companies -- Berger writes that because "None of us can predict which way it will go, let alone how quickly things will happen.  But that isn't a reason to sit on the sidelines and wait."

Which brings us back to AT&T. Its new service includes a $1 billion investment for 2008, and will use technology acquired from USinternetworking (USi) to create five "super" internet data centers in the United States, Europe and Asia, adding to its network of 33 existing internet data centers. Presumably, these new data centers will conform to Berger's 4th principle.

But parsing through the rest of the service offerings feels a bit like a mish-mash of existing hosted services with new on-demand platforms. GigaOm has more analysis on this, pretty much along similar lines. Stacey Higgenbotham raises the question that perhaps the mixed signals in AT&T's announcement were meant to  assuage fears from large, enterprise customers. I'd wonder though, if the poor messaging also doesn't reflect some internal confusion on the part of AT&T.

Comments

[dig:]

the concept of "cloud computing" is simply the new buzzword for server-centric applications. virtualization services like amazon s3 and ec3 are enablers of these kinds of applications by making them cheaper to deploy than renting enterprise class capacity and interconnectivity from a provider like at&t. a big part of what at&t is offering seems to compete at least partly with akamai.

2008 Aug 06 07:49 AM

[truenorth:]

If Google Maps are a prime example of "cloud computing" maybe SeekingAlpha has its own problem with "internal confusion". Hey, look, it's cloud computing on my cell phone! Who said it was going to be a difficult transition!

2008 Aug 06 08:45 AM

[notsosmart:]

i asked a few weeks ago what this meant-no reply.nobody really knows i guess.hey look out the window its cloud computing-ah its only the cloud.lol.

2008 Aug 06 04:29 PM