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Google bets future on improving Client, Connectivity, and Cloud

By | May 29, 2008, 8:19am PDT

On Wednesday morning, Vick Gundotra, Engineering VP at Google opened the Google I/O developer’s conference in San Francisco. I jotted down a few (ok, a lot of) notes for this and other sessions that I’d like to share with you. This is not quite a transcript, but rather a paraphrasing of the main points from Gundotra and other speakers.

Advancing the web is critical to the entire Internet ecosystem. How are we going to do this? There are 3 primary areas of investment: Client, Connectivity, and Cloud. Some of the challenges are ones that all developers face. Some of the tensions of the past have re-occurred. We think we’re at the cusp of solving some of those tensions.

In the beginning there was the Mainframe era. It was marked by powerful capability, not very accessible, easy deployment, less functionality. Next was the Personal Computer era - less powerful, more accessibility, harder deployment, more functional.

Then came the Internet era - same tensions again. The browser is the client that matters for the web. We were back to dumb terminals. Browsers limited us in what we were able to do. On the server there was massive capability: clouds. Clouds in many respects are just as inaccessible as mainframes were. Google spends millions investing in data centers, which is out of reach of most developers.

Is this where we are? At Google we believe we can solve these problems, by making the cloud more accessible, and making the client more powerful. It’s like an “in-phase wave transition”. Amplification not cancellation. And during all this, keep connectivity pervasive.

Continue reading “Google bets future on improving Client, Connectivity, and Cloud”…

Ed Burnette is a software industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience as a programmer, author, and speaker. He has written numerous technical articles and books, most recently "Hello, Android: Introducing Google's Mobile Development Platform" from the Pragmatic Programmers.

Disclosure

Ed Burnette

Ed Burnette is a Manager of Mobile Development at SAS. However the postings on this site are his own and do not represent the positions, strategies, or opinions of his employer.

Biography

Ed Burnette

Ed Burnette has been hooked on computers ever since he laid eyes on a TRS-80 in the local Radio Shack. Since graduating from NC State University he has programmed everything from serial device drivers and debuggers to web servers. After a delightful break working on commercial video games, Ed reluctantly returned to business software. He currently develops enterprise software for Android phones and tablets.

In his copious spare time, Ed writes and speaks about all kinds of technology and software. His most recent books include the Eclipse IDE Pocket Guide from O'Reilly and Hello, Android: Introducing Google's Mobile Development Platform from the Pragmatic Programmers.

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