Google: Four trends will move applications to the Web

CIO - Four key trends will hasten the adoption of Web-based applications and cloud computing, says Rishi Chandra, product manager of Google Enterprise, the division of the search giant that makes the enterprise software Google Apps. Here's a look at those trends, as Chandra outlined them to attendees at at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston this morning.

1. Consumer Innovation Setting the Pace

Prior to the ubiquity of the Web in homes, the most innovative technologies could be found at work. With improved connectivity and less expensive hardware, however, most innovation occurs first in the consumer space, Chandra says. Due to a need to please the end user, technologies have been forced to evolve to users' needs; not the other way around. "The consumer world is more Darwinian than enterprise markets," he says. "The problem here is it's hard for the [business and IT] decision-makers to understand the needs of the end user. We have to show our value to consumers. People can go from Google search to Yahoo search in one click. We need to prove that we have the best value for that end user."

2. Rise of the Power Collaborator

The worker used to be very individually focused, and technology was designed to reflect that reality, Chandra says. It was also very clunky and "designed by experts for experts," says Chandra, who showed the Enteprise 2.0 crowds a slide of an old-looking enterprise application with more than a dozen check boxes and pull-down menus. Cloud computing -- applications accessed over the Web -- will be powerful but easy to use, he says.

Cloud computing will allow for users to collaborate in real time and must be agnostic towards operating systems and other core pieces of technology, he says. "When you share, you can't have the expectation that we're on the same platform," Chandra says. "I don't care what operating system they're on. They should access this app on any platform or device."

3. New Economics of Scale for IT

If you accept the fact that the majority of services and software will move to the cloud someday, then you need to prepare for massive scalability challenges to host all the data, he says. Chandra was quick to note that Google Inc., which has been building data centers all over the world, has been preparing for this reality.

What are some current Google-scale challenges? Google hosts tens of millions of users on the consumer version of Gmail, 7 million photos are uploaded to Picasa every day, and 10 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. He noted that as vendors build more data centers, the cost will come down, creating more opportunities to build powerful applications.