Architecture + Strategy : S+S

Cloud Computing and Azure Presentation at South Bay .NET User Group

dachou — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:24:30 GMT

I had the privilege of speaking to the community at the South Bay .NET User Group again, on March 12, 2009; onsite at the Honda campus in Torrance, California. Thanks to everyone who made the time to attend!

For those who are interested, the slide decks I used can be found via the links below.

Cloud Computing and the Microsoft Platform

dachou — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:09:14 GMT

It has been a couple of months since I wrote about cloud computing and Microsoft’s plans and strategies. Now that Azure Services Platform has been unveiled at PDC2008, and after having the opportunities to discuss it with a community of architects from major enterprises and startups via the Architect Council series of events, I can talk about cloud computing from the perspective of the Microsoft platform, and the architectural considerations that influenced its design and direction.

Okay – cloud computing today is a really overloaded term, much more than SOA (service-oriented architecture) when it was the hottest ticket in IT. There are a lot of different perspectives on cloud computing, adding to the confusion and the hype. And unsurprisingly, there are a lot of confusion around Microsoft’s cloud platform too. So here is one way of looking at it.

Microsoft’s cloud includes SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) offerings as shown in the top row of the above diagram, such as Windows Live and the Business Productivity Online Suite; and the PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) offering currently branded as the Azure Services Platform. For the rest of this article we will focus on the Azure Services Platform, as it represents a platform on top of which additional capabilities can be developed, deployed, and managed.

Comprehensive Software + Services Platform

At Microsoft, we believe that the advent of cloud computing does not necessitate that existing (or legacy) IT assets be moved into the cloud, as it makes more sense to extend to the cloud as opposed to migrate to the cloud. We think that eventually, a hybrid world of on-premise software and cloud-based services will be the majority norm, although the balancing point between the two extremes may vary greatly among organizations of all types and sizes. As a platform company, Microsoft’s intention is to provide a platform that can support the wide range of scenarios in that hybrid world, spanning the spectrum of choices between on-premises software and cloud-based services.

Thus Microsoft’s cloud platform, from this perspective, is not intended to replace the existing on-premises software products such as our suite of Windows Server products, but rather, completes the spectrum of choices and the capabilities required for a Software + Services model.

Cloud Platform as a Next-Generation Internet-Scaled Application Environment

So what is a cloud platform? It should provide an elastic compute environment that offers auto-scalability (small to massive), and ~100% availability. However, while some think that the compute environment means a server VM (virtual machine) allocation/provisioning facility that provides servers (i.e., Windows Servers, Linux Servers, Unix Servers, etc.) for administrators to deploy applications into, Microsoft’s approach with the Azure Services Platform is remarkably different.

Azure Services Platform is intended to be a platform to support a “new class of applications” – cloud applications.

On the other hand, the Azure Services Platform is not a different location to host our existing database-driven applications such as traditional ASP.NET web apps or third-party packaged applications deployed on Windows Server. Cloud applications are a different breed of applications. Now, the long-term roadmap does include capabilities to support Windows-Server-whichever-way-we-want-it, but I think the most interesting/innovative part is allowing us to architect and build cloud applications.

To clarify, let us take a quick look at the range of options from an infrastructure perspective.

The diagram above provides a simplified/generalized view of choices we have from a hosting perspective:

On-premises: represents the traditional model of purchasing/licensing and acquiring software, install them, and manage them in our own data centers
Hosted: represents the co-location or managed outsourced hosting services. For example, GoGrid, Amazon EC2, etc.
Cloud: represents cloud fabric that provides higher-level application containers and services. For example, Google App Engine, Amazon S3/SimpleDB/SQS, etc.

From this perspective, “Hosted” represents services that provide servers-at-my-will, but we will interact with the server instances directly, and manage them at the server level so we can configure them to meet our requirements, and install/deploy applications and software just as we have done with existing on-premises software assets. These service providers manage the underlying infrastructure so we only have to worry about our servers, but not the engineering and management efforts required to achieve auto-scale and constant availability.

“Cloud” moves the concerns even higher up the stack, where application teams only need to focus on managing the applications and specifying to the environment their security and management policies, and the cloud infrastructure will take care of everything else. These service providers manage the application runtimes, so we can focus on deploying and managing business capabilities, as well as higher-level and differentiating aspects such as user experience, information architecture, social communities, branding, etc.

However, this does not mean that any one of these application deployment/hosting models is inherently better than the other. Yep, while most people look at “hosted” and “cloud” models as described here, both as cloud platforms, they are not necessarily more relevant than the on-premises model for all scenarios. These options all present varying trade-offs that we as architects need to understand, in order to make prudent choices when evaluating how to adopt or adapt to the cloud.

Trade-Offs in the Cloud

Let us take a closer look at the trade-offs between the on-premises model and the cloud (as differences between “hosted” and “cloud” models are comparatively less).

At the highest level, we are looking at trade-offs between data consistency and scalability/availability. This is a fundamental difference between on-premises and cloud-based architectures, as “traditional” on-premises system architectures are optimized to provide near-real-time data consistency (sometimes at the cost of scalability and availability), whereas cloud-based architectures are optimized to provide scalability and availability (by compromising data consistency).

One way to look at this, for example, is how we used to design and build systems using on-premises technologies. We used pessimistic locking, optimistic locking, two-phase commit, etc., methods to ensure proper handling of updates to a database via multiple threads. And this focus on ensuring the accuracy and integrity of the data was deemed one of the most important aspects in modern IT architectures. However, data consistency is achieved by compromising concurrency. For example, in DBMS design, the lowest transaction isolation level “serializable” means all transactions occur in a serial manner (in a way, single-threaded) which promises safe updates from multiple clients. But that adversely impacts performance and scalability in highly concurrent systems. Raising the isolation level helps to improve concurrency, but the database loses some control over data integrity.

Furthermore, as we look at many of the Internet-scale applications, such as Amazon S3/SimpleDB, Google BigTable, and the open source Hadoop; their designs and approaches are very different from traditional on-premises RDBMS software. Their primary goal is to provide scalable and performant databases for extremely large data sets (lots of nodes and petabytes of data), which resulted in trading off some aspects of data integrity and required users to accommodate data that is “eventually consistent”.

Amazon Web Services CTO, Werner Vogels, has recently updated his thoughts on “eventual consistency” in highly distributed and massively scaled architectures. An excellent read for more details behind the fundamental principles that contribute to this trade-off between the two models.

Thus, on-premises and cloud-based architectures are optimized for different things. And that means on-premises platform are still relevant, for specific purposes, just as cloud-based architectures. We just need to understand the trade-offs so each can be used effectively for the right reasons.

For example, an online retailer’s product catalog and storefront applications, which are published/shareable data that need absolute availability, are prime candidates to be built as cloud applications. However, once a shopping cart goes into checkout, then that process can be brought back into the on-premise architecture integrated with systems that handle order processing and fulfillment, billing, inventory control, account management, etc., which demand data accuracy and integrity.

The Microsoft Platform

I hope it’s kind of clear why Microsoft took this direction in building out the Azure Services Platform. For example, the underlying technologies used to implement Azure include Windows Server 2008, but Microsoft decided to call the compute capability Windows Azure, because it represents application containers that operate at a higher level in the stack, instead of Windows Server VM instances for us to use directly. In fact, it actually required more engineering effort this way, but the end result is a platform that provides extreme scalability and availability, the transparency of highly distributed and replicated processes and data, while hiding the complexities of the systems automation and management operations on top of a network of globally distributed data centers. This should help clarify, at a high level, as to how Azure can be used to extend existing/legacy on-premise assets, instead of being just another outsourced managed hosting location.

Of course, this is only what this initial version of the platform looks like. From a long-term perspective, Microsoft does plan to increase parity between the on-premise and cloud-based platform components, especially from a development and programming model perspective, so that the applications can be more portable across the S+S spectrum. But the fundamental differences will still exist, which will help to articulate the distinct values provided by different parts of the platform.

Thus the Azure Services Platform is intended for a “new class of applications”. Different from the traditional on-premise database-driven applications, the new class of “cloud applications” are increasingly more “services-driven”, as applications operate in a service-oriented environment, where data can be managed and provisioned as services by cloud-based database service providers such as Amazon S3/SimpleDB, Google MapReduce/BigTable, Azure SQL Services, Windows Azure Storage Services, etc., and capabilities integrated from other services running in the Web, provisioned by various private and public clouds. This type of applications inherently operate on an Internet scale, and are designed with a different set of fundamentals such as eventual consistency, idempotent processes, federated identity, services-based functional partitioning and composition (loose-coupling), isolation, parallel and replicated data and process architecture, etc.

This post is part of a series of articles on cloud computing and related concepts.

Microsoft Implementing Software Plus Services

dachou — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:09:00 GMT

Microsoft has been talking about "Software + Services" (S+S) as its vision of the future for a while now (see related posts on S+S: Microsoft Platform Overview & Talking about Software Plus Services). People like Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie often talk about the applicable patterns and trends that exemplify this concept, even though they don't always mention the moniker.

And Microsoft's execution on this direction is quite visible too. From continued investments on the desktop and enterprise software, to the latest and still growing cloud platform that brings many of the traditional capabilities into the Web.

For example, many of the enterprise servers - Exchange, SharePoint, Office Communications, and eventually Biztalk and SQL Server as well, are all being implemented as services in the cloud that users can use directly, without investing in their own physical infrastructures to host and manage them. There are also a lot of progress being made in the consumer space in the form of Windows Live services.

However, a major value proposition in S+S is the ability to integrate traditional software with distributed services, and bring the best of both worlds together. What has Microsoft done so far to implement that S+S vision?

Basically, many efforts are happening across the board. Some of the more visible ones include:

Exchange - it supports multiple delivery means (hosted on-premise, outsourced hosting/management by a partner, and cloud-based service from Microsoft), it supports many clients (Outlook, OWA, Outlook Mobile, Outlook Voice Access), multiple licensing models - traditional perpetual and subscription; plus itself can be a consumer of attached services such as Forefront spam/filtering services

Office System - Office clients combined with SharePoint server represents a business productivity platform (client-server interaction and leveraging the many valuable enterprise services in SharePoint such as enterprise search, content management, business data catalog, business intelligence, etc.). Excel spreadsheets can be published into SharePoint and then provisioned as web services, InfoPath forms, stored as part of SharePoint’s InfoPath services, can be rendered on InfoPath clients but can also be rendered directly from SharePoint as forms services. Office clients themselves can also be extended with .NET to connect to back-end systems whether directly or via SharePoint or Biztalk. For example, Office Live Workspaces which is a cloud-based SharePoint service for consumers, SharePoint Online for businesses, etc.

SharePoint - SharePoint Server itself can be deployed on-premise, outsourced hosting, or accessed as a subscription service from Microsoft (SharePoint Online). It also has many other flavors such as Office Live, Office Live Workspaces that live in the cloud as services for consumers to use

Windows Live - known as a set of cloud-based services, but Microsoft has also delivered a set of client-side software (Mail, Messenger, PhotoGallery, Toolbar, Writer) to improve the user experience, in addition to the browser-based interfaces. Also many of the services offer API’s for people to build applications with.

Office Communications Server - similar to Exchange, it now also has a cloud-based service for people to use (Office Communications Online), plus API's for developers to build specific branding and user experiences

Duet - a product that integrates Microsoft Office with SAP. Basically users can use the Office clients as the UI to SAP services

Xbox - Xbox Live is one of the first examples of S+S

Dynamics - similar model to Exchange - multiple deployment/delivery models, licensing models, and client access channels

Windows - Windows Update is a componentized client and cloud-based service interaction model; similar is OneCare

These examples all demonstrate the fundamental principles of S+S:

One recent offering that is particularly interesting, is Windows Live Workspaces (http://workspace.officelive.com). This service offering, in a way, is Microsoft's response to Google Apps. Instead of converting the Office client software suite (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Groove, OneNote, Visio, InfoPath, Access, etc.) into browser-based solutions to compete head-on with Google Apps, Windows Live Workspaces was delivered to offer the sharing and collaborating capabilities that have been cited as the biggest shortcoming when using the Office clients.

Now Microsoft actually has been delivering SharePoint services for a number of years now to provide that file sharing and collaboration scenarios for workgroups and enterprises. But there was a gap for consumers and inter-organizational scenarios that traditional SharePoint deployments (inside the firewalls) don't address very well.

Thus Windows Live Workspaces is still built on SharePoint, but has been designed specifically to support consumer and end-user collaboration. It provides capabilities for fine-grained document-level access control, ubiquitous access, cloud-based storage, and client-side add-on's that integrate directly into the Office clients. So users can create/open/save documents into Windows Live Workspace directly from Word or Excel, for example. And of course, user always have the option to save documents locally until they're ready to share with other people.

This approach illustrates the S+S approach by leveraging best of both worlds. Rich client-side software (criticized as bloatware sometimes but it can also be perceived as having the capabilities ready-to-use regardless of where a user is; having internet access or not) that fully leverages the power of the client device platform to maximize individual productivity, while leveraging cloud-based platforms for sharing and collaborating with others to maximize group productivity.

Microsoft Platform Overview

dachou — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:57:09 GMT

I also had the privilege of speaking at the South Bay .NET User Group, at their April monthly meeting, held at the Honda Motors U.S. headquarters campus in Torrance, CA.

The topic of this presentation was an overview of the neat and new things on the broad Microsoft platform, to help distill an understanding of how Microsoft is evolving the platform in response to major trends in IT environment today.

| View | Upload your own

We took a quick glance over many interesting platform components from Microsoft:

Software + Services (S+S): http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/aa699384.aspx
S+S Blueprints: http://www.ssblueprints.net/
SOA - Oslo: http://www.microsoft.com/soa/products/oslo.aspx
BizTalk Services: http://labs.biztalk.net/
Windows Live Platform: http://dev.live.com/
Office Business Applications: https://www.obacentral.com/
Office Live Workspaces: http://workspace.officelive.com/
Silverlight: http://www.silverlight.net/
Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/cc303301.aspx
Silverlight Streaming: http://silverlight.live.com
Popfly: http://www.popfly.com/
Robotics Studio: http://www.microsoft.com/robotics/
XNA Game Studio: http://www.microsoft.com/xna/
Surface: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/
Photosynth: http://labs.live.com/photosynth/
HD View: http://research.microsoft.com/ivm/hdview/hdgigapixel.htm

The intention is to show that, in addition to building .NET applications on the core .NET platform (ASP.NET, Atlas/AJAX, WinForms, WPF, WCF, WF, etc.), there are many rich frameworks for building different kinds of applications, and often available at a higher abstraction level or specialized in specific scenarios. Having an awareness of these components means additional options for .NET developers to address specific problems or implement specific capabilities. The skills and knowledge on the .NET platform, such as programming in C# and familiarity with the Visual Studio development environment, can easily be extended to create solutions using these rich frameworks and platform components.

All this is being brought together under the context of Microsoft's perception of the the future of technology, influenced by major trends today including SOA, Web 2.0, Software-as-a-Service, etc. Microsoft uses the term "Software + Services" to describe this vision, where rich and targeted software components (client-side and installed on-premise) connect to and leverage distributed services (server-side and cloud-based).

The big question is, is this "Software + Services" view of the future relevant? Arguably Microsoft seems to be the only one advocating this view of the world where both client software and distributed services combine to deliver compelling user experiences, when mainstream mindshare today seems to be focusing on browser-based applications. And while it is worth noting that most of the major services players, such as SalesForce, Google, Adobe, Yahoo, Mozilla, etc., all are delivering desktop components that live outside of the browser (or at least work in off-line modes), their approach seems to be client-side software as an augmentation to cloud-based services (i.e., Google Desktop, Adobe AIR, etc.).

It is still difficult to say whether "Software + Services" will be more relevant, or browser platforms will become more dominant than they already are. As we can expect to see that the browser platform will become more sophisticated, whether via continued improvements in HTML and JavaScript or shift to RIA platforms such as Adobe Flex and Microsoft Silverlight (and Java FX, Open Laszlo, etc.); and that smart client applications will become easier to distribute and manage (like how FireFox manages its own updates). But I do think probability is higher that we can expect that not everything will be delivered through browsers.

In particular, we should expect that organizations will continue to invest in additional channels beyond the browser to reach customers. Desktop gadgets, desktop applications, plug-ins or add-ons to existing desktop application platforms (such as Office clients, Windows Live Mesenger, Vista Sidebar, SideShow, etc. on the Microsoft side), multiple device platforms (such as Windows Mobile, XBox, Zune, Media Center, Windows Embedded, etc.; again on the Microsoft side), and various services platforms (such as Windows Live, Popfly, SharePoint Online, etc.; on the Microsoft side), are all potential channels to add value to browser-based user experiences, and in many cases, very viable options to differentiate from others.

Now Microsoft may be the most vocal about the value of client-side software combined with server-side services, and building a platform that provides a spectrum of choices (which may be criticized as adding complexity as opposed to simplifying and unifying into a "good enough" approach). Similar approaches can also be identified from other leaders in the industry. Google for one is delivering more and more platform components - Google Apps, Apps Engine, Android, Desktop, GrandCentral, iGoogle, Search/Analytics/Ads, Youtube, and many more in the pipeline such as audio and video advertising, etc. From a high-level the visible trend is that Google is aggressively diversifying its platform and providing value by allowing customers to leverage the capabilities in those platforms.

Thus, we can expect to see that the technology "platform" is evolving into a much more diversified set of capabilities, and increasingly, those capabilities can be leveraged via a multitude of means beyond tradition API-based or Web services-based integration; beyond writing code.

Talking about Software Plus Services

dachou — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:47:25 GMT

I had the privilege of speaking at the southern California IASA (International Association of Software Architects) meeting, and connect with the great group of people there.

I talked about "Software Plus Services" (S+S). In essence it is a vision of the future. Microsoft came up with this "S+S" moniker, but it is just intending to describe a future where all kinds of software working together to provide consistent, seamless, yet targeted experiences for the users.

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Granted, S+S can be interpreted as Microsoft's attempt at holding onto the client software market, which also seems a rather lone voice these days in the sea of Web 2.0, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models. But a real relevant question is, what does the future look like beyond Web 2.0 and SaaS? Many Web visionaries have suggested a future where everything is in the cloud (or Web) and provisioned (delivered) via browsers to the end users. And that's still a highly probable future, as browsers will improve in sophistication, and more computing devices will support browsers.

While browser-based applications provide the simplicity in deployment and immediate universal reach, they also represent a one-size-fits-all approach to meet customer needs. For example, most perpetually-beta websites have just one version for all users. The commonly described elegant simplicity in user experience in the primary website is probably good enough for most visitors. However, many organizations are also realizing that they need to deliver different kinds of experiences for different user communities (such as "power users" often higher in value), in order to maintain their relationships and differentiate from competitors.

Thus the question is then, do we build multiple versions of a website for different groups of users, or do we deliver different kinds of software that can provide a higher level of service? Basically, no right generic answer for that question, as both are valid options for different scenarios. But the point here is, it should not seem so far-fetched to evaluate options beyond browser applications at this point.

In fact, many organizations have taken this route to deliver value to their users. For example, eBay has delivered a desktop application for their power users, while an ecosystem of third-party developers also exist that provide different kinds of software applications that plug into the Web services API's eBay offers. There are also recent news of TV manufacturers offering support for direct viewing of content from Youtube (or AppleTV which already has a built-in menu for Youtube). The point is, specialized software implemented to operate beyond the browser platform is showing up in many, many different places. Their goals are simple - to provide a more intuitive user experience for people, by creating targeted and differentiated experiences that link to their core services.

So I think a higher probability exists that the future will not be just "everything run inside the browsers". It will still be the primary means of access for most consumers, but it doesn't have the be the only means of delivery of value to customers.

And this is one of the fundamental aspects of S+S; the power of choice. Instead of using a one-size-fits-all approach to address all problems, we as architects should be in a position where we can map multiple options to a specific issue, then choose the right combination of options depending on the trade-off evaluations. A spectrum of choices can be viewed as:

Choice in design/implementation - client, server, mobile devices, composite apps, embedded apps, etc.
Choice in delivery - on-premise, third-party hosted, vendor hosted, etc.
Choice in monetization - traditional licensing, subscription, services/support, advertising, etc.

And the S+S future vision points out a bigger picture view of things where options that span this entire software spectrum, can be utilized in different combinations to deliver value to end-users.

If you're interested to chat more about this, please feel free to reach out. The slide deck I presented can be downloaded as PPT from the Slideshare.net link above (~20MB), or the PPTX is available on Winodws Live Skydrive (~10MB).

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2007.12.04 MSDN PowerSeries Event in Irvine, CA

dachou — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:06:09 GMT

I had the opportunity to present at the MSDN PowerSeries event in Irvine, on Software + Services, Windows Live Platform, and the Office Platform. It was a tough act to follow after Lynn Langit's morning session, but the audience was great and allowed me to talk about these topics at an architecture level and not providing implementation-level details.

For those who attended the event - thank you again for your time at the event and the feedback you've provided; both positive and otherwise. Here are the presentations:

Announcements

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Software + Services Overview

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Windows Live Platform Overview

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Office Platform Overview

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The presentation decks have also been uploaded to my Windows Live Skydrive in PowerPoint 2007 (PPTX) format. If you don't have Office 2007, you can download the free PowerPoint Viewer 2007. Here are the direct links to the presentation slide decks in PowerPoint 2007 (PPTX) format:

Announcements
Software + Services
Windows Live Platform
Office as a Platform

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Thoughts from the WebbyConnect Summit

dachou — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 02:44:58 GMT

I had the opportunity to attend the WebbyConnect Summit on October 3-5 at Laguna Beach. It was a series of non-technical panel discussions on the various growing trends on the Web, and their social and cultural impacts, especially with respect to the media and internet industries. Topics discussed include:

Web as an essential media channel
Convergence of online and traditional media
Convergence of minority expert knowledge and mass collective intelligence
Disruptive innovation in organizations
Privacy vs. piracy on the Web; cultural impacts on the next generation
Convergence of the Web and physical worlds
Emergence of social networks and online media as political platforms
Importance of brand and storytelling on the Web
Web 2.0 as a customer engagement platform
PR’s transition from absolute control to dialogues with consumers

It was a very insightful event, as the various very notable speakers presented their thoughts on how media and social trends are impacting the evolution of the Web, and vice versa.

Some highlights:

General theme of “convergence” between extremes; emerging focus on “and” and away from “either/or” debates; best of both worlds and hybrid models instead of one dominating/replacing the other. For example,

Traditional TV media and online media
Computers and devices
Online and offline
Inherent openness and selective filtering / segmented privacy
User generated content and high production value content
Mass collective knowledge and expert editorial

Summit opened with Tommy Means’ (Creative Director, Mekanism) overview of the “Clarifications” campaign for Microsoft Windows Vista launch
Rei Inamoto (Global Creative Director, AKQA) provided an overview of the “Iris” alt-reality game (ARG) and “Believe” campaigns for the Halo 3 launch
Amanda Kelso (Executive Producer, DBH) – Mentos Intern “Trevor” campaign
Nick Bergstrom (Creative Director, FarFar) – Diesel “Heidies 15MBs of fame” campaign
Ricardo Figueira (Creactive Director, AgencialClick, Brazil) - Motorola RAZR2 campaign
Rob Master (Director of Marketing U.S., Skin, Unilever) - Dove webisodes and AXE campaigns
Arianna Huffington (Co-Founder, The Huffington Post) mentioned during her keynote address: "stop the debate of either/or", and "Get connected to figure out how to get disconnected, then reconnect with ourselves"
Michael Eisner (Founder, Tornante; former Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company) mentioned during his keynote address, that change is the constant theme (based on what he has seen in the media industry over the years), but the ability of great storytelling and expert editorial remains essential
Vinton Cerf (Chief Internet Evangelist, Google) mentioned trends of convergence and mobility ("I P on everything!"), and that client-side software is still relevant. Also interesting was the observation on challenges of the digital age, where information preservation (for thousands of years) will become a major issue due to the rapid advancements in technology

My thoughts:

It was very refreshing to hear from the thought leaders in the social Web and media and advertising agency spaces. Particularly many campaigns that worked wildly successfully, by leveraging many social elements of Web 2.0. For example, “Trevor” as world's intern where anyone can schedule Trevor's time and ask him to do things (like sending a heavy metal birthday gram), effectively used a combination of user-generated content, viral advertising, live web feeds, instant messaging, video streaming, community establishment in Facebook and Myspace, etc., that drew an extremely popular response on the Web. The campaigns discussed were just about the most effective use of Web 2.0 platforms I've seen.

To me it boils down to brand management, and the emergence of using Web-oriented techniques to drive a new breed of brand campaigns on the Web. However, a few principles remain the same (lessons for a technologist such as myself, but obvious to people working in these areas):

It's about storytelling and not product placement
Fun and humor (one layer of connecting at an emotional level), but also be able to poke fun at oneself especially if concepts are parallel to public perception of the brand to begin with
It is comparatively less effective if a brand tries to uphold itself by fighting against public perception; as after all, brand *is* perception

On the general trend of convergence:

This was my biggest takeaway from the summit, as it was clear that the pendulum has swung back away from the extremes, in many different areas. As noted earlier, online and off-line, traditional media and online media, collective intelligence and expert editorial, etc. Basically people are no longer claiming the absolute dominance of one extreme over the other, but are seeing trends that hybrid and combinatorial models work much more effectively. In the technology world, the focus is now shifting towards bringing information and access to the users in a seamless and consistent manner, but with targeted user experiences for different platforms.

Coming back closer to home, from a technology architecture perspective, I found all these trends of convergence are very analogous to the core of Microsoft's "Software Plus Services" (S+S) strategy (and moniker). I akin S+S to Microsoft's vision of the future, in response to all the recent innovation and mindshare on SOA, Web 2.0, SaaS, etc. I will leave the details of my thoughts on S+S to another post, but just briefly here - it's an architecture of "AND", where both local software and cloud-based services work together to provide the most targeted user experiences. Vinton Cerf noted a similar thought in his keynote, that the internet is still largely a transport that is agnostic of the context and data that traverses it. We still need software to interpret and visualize the information in meaningful ways. And the fact is, the dominant players in the online space, such as Google, Yahoo, eBay, Saleforce.com, etc., are all moving towards this middle by providing client-side software. It seems their current approach can be categorized as "Services Plus Software" where cloud-based services are augmented by client-side software, compared to Microsoft's approach of "Software Plus Services" where client-side software is augmented by "Web as features". It is arguable which approach (or direction) is more relevant, but I think in general the macro-trend that is occurring is that of convergence between software and services.