Post 1: Tim O'Reilly answers his own question: What is Web 2.0?
Post 2: in response, and more cryptically, Rick Segal observes Web 2.0 != a check
Some observers saw these as opposing views. Here are a couple:
Both posts are excellent. Sure, Tim focuses on newness, while Rick observes that:
Having said that, enough already with this Web 2.0 nonsense. We are doing the same thing we always do when “new” has “newer” come along. We hype the snot out of it and crap all over the ‘old stuff’.
...
I’m not going to Web 2.0 conferences and am going to take a very dim view of start ups who think a Web 2.0 badge is a waiver for actually doing the fundamentals of a business, those being: Solving a problem with a solution customers love and will pay for. Don’t look for the buzz words to get you into the game or get you a check.
All that said, I saw lots in Tim's long post to think about:
The value of key databases, including identity
The race is on to own certain classes of core data: location, identity, calendaring of public events, product identifiers and namespaces. In many cases, where there is significant cost to create the data, there may be an opportunity for an Intel Inside style play, with a single source for the data. In others, the winner will be the company that first reaches critical mass via user aggregation, and turns that aggregated data into a system service.
For example, in the area of identity, PayPal, Amazon's 1-click, and the millions of users of communications systems, may all be legitimate contenders to build a network-wide identity database. (In this regard, Google's recent attempt to use cell phone numbers as an identifier for Gmail accounts may be a step towards embracing and extending the phone system.) Meanwhile, startups like Sxip are exploring the potential of federated identity, in quest of a kind of "distributed 1-click" that will provide a seamless Web 2.0 identity subsystem.
Microsoft (more precisely, MSN) made a clumsy run at this in 2001, with Passport and the ill-fated Hailstorm. It seems to me that one premise of Hailstorm/Passport -- a managed identity and authentication service -- is crying out for a provider. I think ADFS (see this post) will go a long way to build out this vision technically and pragmatically, maybe in partnership with Verisign, Bank of America, USPS, ....
Tim also -- of course -- discusses Software as a Service (SaaS), along with a warning to Microsoft:
one of the defining characteristics of internet era software is that it is delivered as a service, not as a product. This fact leads to a number of fundamental changes in the business model of such a company ...
...
While Microsoft has demonstrated enormous ability to learn from and ultimately best its competition, there's no question that this time, the competition will require Microsoft (and by extension, every other existing software company) to become a deeply different kind of company. Native Web 2.0 companies enjoy a natural advantage, as they don't have old patterns (and corresponding business models and revenue sources) to shed.
One point we at Microsoft have to deal with is that if you are planning to host your own service (like Salesforce.com) then Open Source may have a number of advantages over Windows:
1) Licensing cost … zero
2) Licensing simplicity … compared to various Windows licensing options which distinguish betwem authenticated/anonymous users
3) Ability to customize and tune the environment -- for performance etc … while Windows is clearly tunable, scriptable, and so on (and may in fact have a lower TCO, even be more secure than, say, Linux) the person who deploys an open source technology may place more value on control/discretion.
4) Ability to fix bugs yourself or get them from the community … rather than depend on MSFT to agree it’s a bug, ship a fix, etc
Microsoft has some advantages (beyond TCO and security) in this narrow situation:
1) If you plan to offer an enterprise-hosted server product, then some of the disadvantages listed above become advantages (eg. Enterprises may not want to rely in the community for support, and may prefer Microsoft)
2) If you plan a Windowsibased client (standalone, plug-in to Outlook, etc) then Windows may bea better server (built-in authentication, etc)
3) As your server scales, then MySQL will run out of gas. SQL Server plus Windows is a lot less expensive than Oracle plus Linux.
4) .... there must (will) be more :-)
As Rick Segal put it, we at Microsoft have to deliver "... a solution customers love and will pay for."
Even funnier is Nick Carr's reaction to the hype...
Posted by: Sam Ramji | 12 October 2005 at 11:05 PM