Links for 03-05-2010

• Elliott Associates and Novell: All About a Game of Cat and Mouse - ConsortiumInfo.org - Good read although I wonder if here, as elsewhere, the importance of SUSE Linux in the dynamics aren't being overstated (e.g. because of the rise of Ubuntu).
• Cloudonomics.com - "In a nutshell S+S is a model which embraces both traditional on premise IT and the functionality provided by the cloud – letting the user decide whether they want to use online or on-premise functionality, or a combination of the two. It’s a salient approach as, in reality, most companies will use a mix of traditional IT and cloud services. Over the next few years the wider IT industry will come to acknowledge that cloud is not an ‘all or nothing’ proposition." More complicated than just economics of course.
• Collective Conversation » ARcade » Blog Archive » Grappling with the Cloud – What the Analysts Say (and why their opinion matters) - "In a nutshell S+S is a model which embraces both traditional on premise IT and the functionality provided by the cloud – letting the user decide whether they want to use online or on-premise functionality, or a combination of the two. It’s a salient approach as, in reality, most companies will use a mix of traditional IT and cloud services. Over the next few years the wider IT industry will come to acknowledge that cloud is not an ‘all or nothing’ proposition."
• The Cloud Market: EC2 Statistics - Ubuntu presence not a surprise. Share of plain Debian (assuming that's being reported accurately) is.
• Dennis Forbes on Software and Technology - Getting Real about NoSQL and the SQL-Isn't-Scalable Lie - "[Though as Michael Stonebraker points out, SQL the query language actually has remarkably little to actually to do with the debate. It would be more clearly called NoACID]"
• Network Profile of the Day… Gary Kindall & CP/M - Prof. Boerner's Explorations
• The Argument for Dirt-Cheap E-Books | BNET Technology Blog | BNET - I don't agree with everything here but provocative discussion of ebook pricing.
• Data Center Dialog: Going rogue, cloud computing-style: what you can learn by going around IT - "But most interestingly, we also discussed the truly amazing tendency that people in even in the most conservative IT organizations have to, well, “go rogue.” In some of the most locked-down IT environments, folks try innovative stuff on their own, even when it doesn’t meet all of their strict requirements. Why? To help them get their job done in a much better or faster way."
• Cloud Security Takes A Big Leap Forward - Chuck's Blog - Some good discussion of a security architecture for virtualized environments.
• 5 things VMware must do to fend off Microsoft
• Observations on film art : Motion-capturing an Oscar - "With all the kinds of changes that I’ve pointed out, how would Academy members be supposed to judge these performances were they to be nominated in the traditional acting categories? Where is the boundary between acting and special effects? Despite actors’ and directors’ claims to the contrary, the movements and expressions caught by performance capture are changed in many obvious and not so obvious ways. A close inspection of the comparison photos reveals the details of the transformation, but in watching the film, the viewer cannot necessarily gauge what sorts of changes were made. I can well imagine that actors like Meryl Streep or Jeff Bridges would be justified if they objected to competing in the same Oscar category as what are essentially hybrid performances seamlessly combining the original acting and the digital transformation."