Revolution vs. Innovation

I've been thinking alot about this cloud-computing "movement" that has been a buzz word for the past year and half or so. Being able to access anything from anywhere? Awesome, but I can do that now.I don't really get it why everyone's like "oh this will totally change computing as we know it". I beg to differ. Perhaps it will change the way we develop, or organize. But not how Desktops sell. Or eliminate the need for desktop software. The desktop is not going to die. Not from Azure, at least.

Amazon has EC2, Microsoft has Azure, and Google has AppEngine. These are fantastic tools, but they are nothing new – Just something someone else thought up, executed properly – followed through and improved upon.

Bill Gates came up with the idea of a true Software Company. This was revolutionary. Apple took Bill's model, and innovated. They improved upon it. And look at what's happening.

I really doubt that Google's new OS is going to bring us anything we don't have already. I do think, however, that it will build on things we already have.

When Chrome came out, it didn't offer anything that we didn't already have. Sure it's a fantastic browser, and I don't want to discount that. But the ability to run "web apps" as applications is nothing new. I had been using Mozilla's Prism for at least a year before Chrome was announced. And on OSX I had been using FluidApp, which is like Prism on Crack.

> It seems like the smart thing to do in the tech world nowadays is to follow through with great ideas – even if they aren't yours.

Mozilla's team came up with the idea of running web apps at application with SSB's (single site browsers), but implementation of Prism was slow, and incredibly buggy. They didn't follow through. Google did. and Google won.

Maybe I don't need to come up with a revolutionary idea. Maybe I just need to be innovative.