Software Deployment

the future is going to be cloud*Some* of the future is going to be cloud.

Are you old enough to remember when client/server apps would take over the world? Thin clients? The PC is dead? If I had a dollar/pound/Euro [scrap that one] for every time I'd read about the demise of the desktop....

"The Cloud" is just the latest FOTM - ride the wave.

So true! The cloud providers themselves have not pondered much on this, I believe.
Kamaal, may I know what prompted you to ask this question?
The reason why I'm asking is, coincidentally even I was asked to create a tech paper on 'Packaging in cloud environment' last week.
I don't understand why it has popped up suddenly and how matured this can be. Although I'm not at all competent to work on it, I have to 'Google' and do it for the sake of it and will post here if I find anything worth mentioning.

I still make a point of waving my hands around in the air in an etheral fashion whenever uttering the words 'the cloud'...

Does it look all bleak at the moment then?
Even if Private cloud is the next step for virtualization, then again only those companies that have already deployed virtualization would go for it.

Well said, VB.

Indeed, I've argued that cheaper hard disks, memory, etc. will mean more "thick apps" that can use the power of a PC. Of course cloud computing has its place, and it's a neat concept. Much of my day when not packaging or developing is spent on "thc cloud" called the internet. Youtube, facebook, linkedin, appdeploy....all that stuff is "the cloud" but PCs haven't gone away. I'd like to see good, cheap and ubiquitous voice recognition software so that we developers don't have to get tendonitiis to do our jobs...now THAT is a development that would be welcome!

I have to say the new stuff VMWare has been and will be coming out with does look very promising. Notably Horizon and most definitely AppBlast look like they could really help mature the Private Cloud experience as it is today. This appblast introduction really blew my socks off when I first saw it, and it shows how platform independent SaaS and HTML5 might shape things to come.

I'm pretty sure there will be a packaging aspect to all these new technologies in one shape or another.

just my 2c ofc.

PJ