Google’s Schmidt’s cloud computing triple thread
September 2, 2011
Taking to the stage to deliver the closing keynote of Salesfore.com’s Dreamforce conference, Schmidt said the tech leaders of the future will embrace the three key trends of mobile, local and social, with the top programmers today building mobile applications.
"The best vendors will offer mobile services and the next generation of startups will be based on that," Schmidt told the audience.
With the phones of the future able to tell where you’ve been, what you did and the people you met (with your permission, Schmidt hastened to add), it’s only a matter of time before they will be suggesting places to go, and people to meet…
Google is now seeing 550,000 Android phones activated every day, Schmidt said, with the number doubling in the space of four to five months.
"There’s a hunger for a multi-platform multi-vendor highly competitive hardware platform."
And the Motorola deal Google is hoping to close isn’t all about patents, said Schmidt, who seems genuinely excited about the product line.
"The good news is we did it for more than just patents. We actually believe the Motorola team has some amazing products."
In a speech that was just as much about people as technology, Schmidt offered up some sage advice on the importance of working with people you like (as he does at Google), and harnessing talent to help your company succeed.
"If you can find a young person and sense that they’re going to do this with you or without you, you can help then…they will change the world."
With a room full of 15,000 cloud computing evangelists and thousands more watching online, Schmidt was on message, saying while we’ve been talking about cloud computing for a long time, the servers and architecture are now in place to drive real innovation.
"What I’m most excited about is what this next generation of entrepreneurs can do on top of that platform."
In a hat tip to Apple founder Steve Jobs, who he said delivered the best performance of any CEO in 50-100 years, Schmidt said Jobs managed to move his company to the new platform of IT development twice, something that took organising around the consumer rather than the company structure.
It was in successfully hiding the complexity behind its services that Apple succeeded over organisations like Microsoft, Schmidt said.
"At Microsoft it never occurred to me that people wouldn’t love that complexity," Schmidt said of his former life. "The industry grew up in a series of stages where you had engineers trying to solve technical problems, so with little idea on consumer wants, to engineers where they have a brilliant understanding of what the consumer needs."
The end result? A cloud-driven world where anyone that understands consumers can build a successful product quickly and with a small team.
"It’s possible now for a small engineering team to have global success within a few weeks,’ Schmidt said, and you only need to look at the developers of Angry Birds to see proof.