Google’s Cloud: Is the Enterprise Truly Ready?

Google is often seen as a fierce competitor to IBM and Microsoft since it has seen a surge in numbers of adoption of Google Apps, but its enterprise cloud structure isn’t quite where it should be yet. Searching the blogosphere, I came across this article from eWeek, in which Dave Rosenberg, CEO of MuleSource, shares that he is rather unimpressed with Google’s cloud, commenting that just because something is hosted it doesn’t make it a truly shared infrastructure.

The difference here between Google and other software is that Google’s services are delivered through a web browser, whereas other companies offer traditional software and servers that must be installed by the client. Dave Rosenberg mentions:

"We're seeing a lot of people who are using our software or other software between external systems, but the idea that we're all moving to the cloud is still probably five years away."

Dave believes that there are certain reasons why the enterprise is slow to move into the “cloud”.

1. SAAS providers like Salesforce.com keep customers locked into their own technology, thus defeating the purpose of SOA.
2. The Google Apps engine is written in only one language, Python. If there was more language support, adoption from the enterprise would come much sooner.

Rosenberg’s solution is that one of the 3 big vendors IBM, Sun or Hewlett-Packard must build huge datacenters to kick-start the future of cloud infrastructure in the enterprise. Do you think that step will truly help mold the use of the “cloud” in the enterprise?