"We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy."

..

"If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow."

www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2012/jan/30/angry-birds-music-midem

How can I top last week’s prediction about Google’s shipping container data centers? By explaining a bit more about how the system came to be and how it will work.

In last week’s column I told how Google has been experimenting with portable data centers built in standard 40-foot shipping containers. The idea isn’t new and it isn’t even Google’s. As far as I can tell it came originally from Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive, who wants to replicate the archive here and there around the world and figured that a shipping container filled with servers and disk drives might be the easiest way to do so. Not only is it truly plug-and-play, but it is also a heck of a lot cheaper from a bit-schlepping perspective. Carrying a petabyte data center by ship from California to Australia is the virtual equivalent of an OC-192 optical connection - the world’s most powerful SneakerNet.

It will take 5 years, as one has to get all right. The fast intuitive UI, the security, the marketing and many other things. Looking at a big company, most people only use:

• Browser
• Calendaring app
• Word
• Excel
• Powerpoint

Why did openoffice not have a wider impact so far? Can a web-based suite win without entering the "comopatability/file format" war?

Have a nice and long weekend. It’s the last two days of the Oktoberfest, so I am preparing for some beer.