In a decade Google will not be known just for it’s Web search capabilities, primarily. Think about Microsoft. Do you say, yeah, Microsoft, that company who makes MS-DOS? No, that is old, they do a lot of things now. Kind of like what Google will be doing in a decade.
I think that most people think of Google as a search company, and that’s ok. That is correct right now. That is what they earn most of their money right now.
Most don’t realize that the exciting part about Google is what’s under the hood. Google is building massive storage and processing capabilities. They are building server facilities with massive capabilities all over the world. Data factories to support the company’s future capabilities.
The factories of the future – data factories. The nature of the software game is changing – from off the shelf software – to online hosted apps.
They are making sure that they are not just a search engine in the future. They are making sure that they will have the capability to be the host of choice with whatever apps they choose. And, they are not just stacking up computers, they are taking commoditized computer parts and with their own custom-made software – are building a reliable and redundant storage and processing capability that is very cost effective.
I just saw an ad for Google hosted apps. It said “build your business, not your backed”. Google corporate email hosting, not including all their other apps, seems like a great deal for businesses.
There is a theory that IT is becoming more and more of a commodity. In some areas, I really think that this is true. Will “build your business, not your back-end” become the mind-set for the future of IT? IT could become mostly hosted out to 3rd party developers and 3rd party hosts? Also, when we all have fast, ubiquitous, wireless access to the Internet, will we want all our data and processing to be on our local PC? Maybe not. If the World becomes more and more hosted, where will Google be? Probably in good shape.
In the mean time, you can expect more applications to be hosted and large amounts of storage space offered to back up all your data. Also, with all those economies of scale and inexpensive space, Google may become the host of choice for many existing businesses – both for email and web-site hosting. In the long term, much of your business and personal apps and data (both devices and home computers) will hosted in a large server farm. And, Google may be making the right moves to be the premier host for the World’s data in addition to their capabilities of organizing and searching.
Tomorrow's Trends 
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