I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Just noticed this …
Google planning undersea ‘Unity’ communications cable?
This post from Cringely has been locked in the back of my head since November 05.
So why buy-up all that fiber, then?
The probable answer lies in one of Google’s underground parking garages in Mountain View. There, in a secret area off-limits even to regular GoogleFolk, is a shipping container. But it isn’t just any shipping container. This shipping container is a prototype data center. Google hired a pair of very bright industrial designers to figure out how to cram the greatest number of CPUs, the most storage, memory and power support into a 20- or 40-foot box. We’re talking about 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk storage that can be dropped-off overnight by a tractor-trailer rig. The idea is to plant one of these puppies anywhere Google owns access to fiber, basically turning the entire Internet into a giant processing and storage grid.
While Google could put these containers anywhere, it makes the most sense to place them at Internet peering points, of which there are about 300 worldwide.
Hmmmmm. Interesting.
blog
I really hope that this is in line with the “Don’t be evil” strategy they tout. If its going to help the internet be more efficient, I think its a great move.
… and when you throw in the 700mhz spectrum for “last mile”, the game gets very interesting in the US.
Cringly, I think, was talking about this the other week - lots of fiber around, throw in one of these with a 700Mhz antenna on the top, and put 700Mhz “modems” in peoples places with either WiMax or Ethernet out the otherside, and wala - ISP’s and telco’s get to suck eggs…..
Pity it would be hard to get up and running in NZ….. :(
Rod, there is one major flaw as I see it in Cringely’s head.
MS is an applications company, it knows how to build apps all the way from the operating system right throught to Windows apps, online apps and mobile devices and right on into the consumer market. Sure it is not number one player in all of these areas but it has big pockets and patience to persevere for market share. Case in point is how much market share Windows Mobile has now. While it may not get more than Apple in the music player market it already has 10% in 8 months.
Google is a search company. Other than Gmail (which frankly while workable is not the best email client since sliced bread) what Google apps have really got substantial market share. None. A lot of use went to Gmail because of its big data size limits. But try getting Gmail connected to say Outlook through a company firewall compared to Hotmail which unlike Gmail uses standard ports.
Doing the data centre fibre thing is easy compared with rolling out apps as we both know.
Um .. Microsoft have got 10% of *what* in 8 months?
I think they may have gotten 10% of the market for 30 GB hard disk players selling for $249 and over in the first couple of months.
I don’t know i they still have that now.
Actually .. they may well now have nearly 100% of the market for 30 GB hard disk players! As Apple are no longer in that market — they now sell only 80 GB and 160 GB hard disk players, and 1, 4, 8 and 16 GB flash based players.
Which is to say that having 10% of a tiny and carefully defined subsegment of the MP3 player market isn’t exactly very impressive.
Bruce, maybe this was not clear. The Zune has 10% of the market share for hard disk based music players, in eight months (announced in May). They have shipped 1 million by June 30.
When launched they they said they wanted 10-20% of the market.
Source PC Advisor UK August 2007 page 22.
The point I was trying to make was money + ability and history of writing applications + in market for long haul = market dominance.