Google is far more than a Search Engine - it's an entire suite of services and massive datacenter infrastructure that's poised to move the next level - to replace much of the datacenter of many corporations and then to become your supercomputer according to Nicolas Carr in a post titled Google's cloud and Robert Cringely in a Thepulpit article on The Future is Cloudy: Google's plan to host ALL our applications. According to Cringely:
"...Take the $100+ billion that U.S. industry currently spends each year on data center-based computing, cut that price in half and send it straight to the Googleplex."
"..It is one thing to threaten Microsoft Office with Google Apps like Gmail and Google Docs, but Google has so much more in mind and what's key are Google extensions being placed in MySQL, the open source database that has Google, by far, as its largest user."
"...Here is what's significant about Google putting code into MySQL: they haven't done it before. Google has been a MySQL user from almost the very beginning, customizing the database in myriad ways to support Google's widely dispersed architecture with hundreds of thousands of servers. Google has felt no need previously to contribute code to MySQL. So what changed? While Google has long been able to mess with the MySQL code in ITS machines, it hasn't been able to mess with the code in YOUR machine and now it wants to do exactly that. The reason it will take so long to roll out MySQL 6.1 is that Google will only deliver its MySQL extensions for Linux, leaving MySQL AB the job of porting that code to the 15 other operating systems they support. That's what will take until early 2009.
Then what? I think the best clue comes from the agreement Google recently signed with IBM to co-promote cloud computing in universities."
Perhaps building big "clouds" of computing services is the next evolution of services - I mean, that's' what Amazon did 5 or 6 years ago - but hardly anyone knew about it or how to use the cloud (though some businesses don't have servers anymore - they run everything on Amazon's "Cloud" of servers and services).
"...Mid-2009 will also see the culmination of Google's huge server build-out. The company is building data centers large and small around the world and populating them with what will ultimately be millions of generic servers. That's when things will get really interesting. Imagine a much more user-friendly version of Amazon's EC2 and S3 services, only spread across 10 or more times as many machines. And as with all its services, Google will offer free versions at the bottom for consumers and paid, but still cost-effective versions nearer the top for businesses and education."
Nicolas Carr points out that Eric Schmidt mentioned we'd all love to throw our servers out and spend 50 bucks a year to have Google run everything:
"... Said CEO Eric Schmidt: “Most people who run small businesses would like to throw out their infrastructure and use ours for $50 per year." But it's not just small businesses that Google's targeting. The company also announced it's running Google Apps pilots in a couple of dozen Fortune 1000 companies, and in that context the primary role of Google Apps may be as a Trojan Horse that gets big companies used to the idea of running their apps on the world's most efficient supercomputer. Truth be told, most big companies wouldn't hesitate to throw out their IT infrastructure if a cheaper, more flexible and more secure alternative was available. Comments Schmidt, dryly: "It looks like it can get pretty big."
Honestly, it will probably be a plus for most consumers and businesses though we'll also become more and more dependant on Google - which is no longer really just a search engine anymore - but more like a force, like manifest destiny (and we know how that went - OK, if you weren't an Indian).
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