Portable Virtual Machines
Having recently moved all our servers to a Virtualized environment, I have started fleshing out the next steps in our drive towards a "true" Private Cloud environment. I am convinced that all our servers should be portable from one Virtual infrastructure to another running the same Hypervisor.

The idea is that moving an application from one provider to another should not be a major application re-configuration effort. All management and monitoring services should be external to the application servers. This will allow the app to migrate to a better cheaper environment much more easily than today and will significantly increase innovation and competition. Infrastructure below the application tier should be open and commodity with cost and services being where providers compete.

GovCloud
Interesting article on Vivek Kundra's plan to lead the government agencies towards a shared cloud. My team has developed a strategy to migrate our shared IT systems to a private cloud. We took the first significant step last week by moving all our system to a shared virtual environment running (primarily) Linux.

Googlenomics
Paula forwarded me this fascinating Wired article on how Google used auctions to permanently change how advertising is sold. The most interesting part is how the algorithm evolved.

I am a bit surprised that I have been blogging a fair amount about search.

PAAS: Salesforce opens up to Google App Engine
Saw this interesting news on Salesforce allowing applications built on the Google App Engine to access Force.com applications and data. This is a good way for Salesforce to support the more open Java development platform supported by Google. I believe that people are very concerned about moving to a properietary development platform. We have been burned in the past by proprietary tools like Notes.

Google / Twitter
I had blogged about my thought that Google should buy Twitter to provide more real-time search. Seem that a deal is with Twitter is not imminent. Read this post on GigaOM on what might Google do about losing the battle to provide search for the "now web".

Here is what I think Google might do: Twitter has a great pulse on current happenings but details of real newsworthy information is still being posted on the blogs. Google should build a real-time indexing for sources that have the most current information and tag it to allow users to follow the most relevant information. Google can then allow users to comment on the stream on information Google produces. Let us see if Google managed to address this evolving opportunity.

How about calling it Google Pulse?

@TiECON: Hans Morris, Visa Inc
Hans talked about few interesting products and services Visa is working on:

• Near Field Communications (NFC) - payments on cell phones
  Visa is working with Nokia to leverage this technology for payments using mobile phones
  

• Account alerts, offers, etc for various events - charges, etc. The main goal being to reduce fraud and to enhance the relationship with the customer.
  

• Card to card money transfer, Prepaids
  These features are gaining significant interest, especially in the emerging markets. There is only 3% card penetration in countries like India. Visa expects most of the growth over the next several years to come from these markets.
  

• Visa business network on facebook
  Trying to build a community of small business customers to learn from each other on Facebook.
  

Another Search (Computational Knowledge) Engine
There is a fair amount of buzz about Wolfram|Alpha (obviously branded by a geek). Everyone is trying to figure out if is a Google killer.

On the surface, I am not sure what I will use this for. I typed "weather in DC" and it came up with a pretty good answer. Here is an interesting article on CNET about some additional tries and results.

Let us see if I will begin using it for some queries.

Don't count out the Cable company
Just read a couple of articles on GigaOm. Seems that cable companies have managed to fend off the telcos deploying fiber-optic networks at great cost:

• Cablecos Look to Businesses for Growth
• DOCSIS 3.0: Coming Soon to a Cableco Near You

What will Verizon and AT&T do next? Broadband + TV + Mobile?

I am very pleased to have competition for my ISP and TV business. I am also happy that we have a flourishing cable business: CableOne!

If I was not a geek ...
I would be a marketing guy. Here is a cool list of new thoughts in marketing that Jason Stewart put together on demandblog after the Inbound Marketing Summit. A couple of items that resonated with me:

• When you are building a community, focus on small groups and then expand outward
• If you "suck" then people tell everyone. If you don't they will tell two people. You need to be there and be aware of people who say you "suck."

I must admit, I prefer being a geek!