Like Google and IBM before them, HP, Intel and Yahoo are joining forces to kick-start cloud-computing research. But unlike IBM/Google, the interesting thing about the new group is that it’s decidedly international in flavor, says Google Watch’s Clint Boulton.
For example, the HP-Intel-Yahoo team also includes the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. HP is supplying the servers and Intel is offering 1,000 to 4,000 processor cores. Yahoo engineers will leverage this hardware to run Apache Hadoop, the open source distributed computing system based on Google’s MapReduce, as well as the Yahoo Pig parallel programming language. The stated goal is to promote cloud computing in industry, academia and governments.
Boulton is optimistic about the new effort and wonders if Google/IBM may be enticed to join in the near future:
Having all five companies on board would take cloud computing to new heights. It could also help Google and Yahoo bolster their cloud computing leads over Microsoft, which has been curiously quiet on the cloud front.
That’s right. Where is Microsoft? Could it be forming a cloud-computing initiative of its own? As Boulton says, Microsoft does tend to go its own way when it doesn’t agree with a group’s direction. But it better get going fast. Google/IBM have the lead, and HP-Intel-Yahoo are on their heels. If Microsoft doesn’t hurry, it could be left in the cloud-computing dust.
