Lightway

Akamai: We're a Cloud Provider, Not a CDN

Glad to see a mainstream CEO is calling cloud computing for what it is - "the phrase of the day that everyone wants to use." Your analysis that they are using the "cloud" term to take advantage of marketing services they have already been using is very astute, and glad to see more people picking up on this, as there is nothing revolutionary nor disruptive about the cloud.

Cloud computing has been around since the .com era. There is nothing new about it, it's just a marketing theme along the lines of Web 2.0. I guess since I've been using TurboTax on the web, I've been using "cloud computing" for over 10 years now.

Matthew makes a good point, the cloud branding is there for investors.

Cloud is just sexy terminology to make investors excited, but it's really just a term for something that has already existed for many years now.

Personally, I am hoping to see more adoption of "the Grid," which is in its infancy, and has more disruptive potential, than "the Cloud."

Check out XtreemOS, which is a pioneer in real-time, WAN based grid computing:

www.xtreemos.org/

Internet Infrastructure Stocks on a Tear

Technology was different in the 1999 market. ANY technology was all lumped together as short term, capital growth. trading plays.

However, technology of today has matured into a two categories.

1) Emerging technology
2) Technology infrastructure

You could think of the technology in #1 as the Facebooks, the Twitters, etc. Most of these technologies won't be around for the long term, but there are a few that break through, create disruptive impacts, and stick around for the long term. You can think of these as biomed type of investments.

The second group, in #2, could be thought of as utilities, they are very boring, and often don't get much exposure, yet their infrastructure provides the means for every emerging technology to exist. This space includes established players, like IBM, Cisco, HPQ, even Verizon and ATT crossover into this space.

There is alot of exciting things brewing up for Web 3.0 and Web 4.0, that will be transforming our lives over the next 20 years. The whole key is further integration, not only from a technological standpoint, but from a social aspect as well.

Alot of talk about the Cloud, but I see the Grid as having even more impact than the Cloud ever will. Check out Xtreemos, for example, sponsored by the European Commission, which brings real time grid computing dispersed OVER geographical areas. There is batch computing that does this, but this brings REAL TIME WAN grid computing to both big organizations and individuals alike.

www.xtreemos.org/