Cloud computing: What we learned from Manifestogate
Cloud computing is the first major IT market disruption that has taken place in the world of open source software, “the wisdom of crowds” and the community collaboration revolution of Web 2.0. The concept of the cloud is trying to grow …
Context & Ripple Effects
This piece lands at the end of an eighteen-month run-up. eWEEK framed open source as the big disruptor back in September 2007; by May 2008 even the New York Times was explaining cloud computing to general business readers, and CNET's own look at the cloud's future followed that November. What changed by late March 2009 is that the argument moved from what the cloud is to who controls its terms — crystallizing in 'Manifestogate', the public fight over an industry-authored cloud manifesto.
That matters because, per the analysis here, cloud is the first major IT market disruption to emerge out of open source software and Web 2.0-style community collaboration rather than a single vendor's roadmap — so the governance question gets settled in public, by crowds of vendors and developers, not behind closed doors.
First-order effects
- Vendors have to publicly stake out a position on the manifesto's openness principles — sign, refuse, or draft rival language — making their stance on interoperability and lock-in visible to customers for the first time.
- Enterprise buyers gain a shared public vocabulary ('open' vs. proprietary cloud) they can use to pressure suppliers during contract negotiations.
Second-order effects
- Competing camps of cloud providers will likely coalesce around different definitions of openness, pushing interoperability debates toward formal standards venues and away from any single document.
- Marketing claims of being 'open' become a competitive differentiator, inviting scrutiny of how much portability each platform actually offers versus what its manifesto language promises.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, cloud governance shifts from vendor-authored position papers toward multi-party, community-driven standard-setting — consistent with this being the first IT disruption whose constituency is the collaborative Web itself rather than incumbent vendor alliances.
- How this fight resolves sets a template for every subsequent infrastructure layer built on the same open-collaboration model: expect disputes over control to surface early and publicly, not after market dominance is entrenched.
The trend: Cloud computing is becoming the first major IT disruption governed in public by open source and Web 2.0 communities, with control over its terms contested openly among vendors rather than dictated by one.