Last week a new startup, DollarShaveClub.com,  launched with a hilarious video done by the co-founder who has stand up comedy experience. You can see the video here:

Great Video but big problem – their website become unresponsive. My browser kept turning its wheels trying to load the page but it was unable to grab any content from the site. The site wasn’t down, it was just overwhelmed with the thousands of requests coming in all at once causing it to become unresponsive.  I was so interested to see their site I logged back in at 1:30 am Pacific time and was finally able to see most of the the site, although it was painfully slow.

The other video that launched last week that went super duper viral, breaking all kinds of records was the Kony 2012 video:

Their site also went down and was acting funny. It was obvious they were hosted on Amazon because you could see the direct s3 domain name in the hostname instead of the invisible children.com hostname.

As mentioned, the problem here is you have this one server (or multiple) trying to serve content to thousands and 10s of thousands of users at the same time. As we noticed, these servers were simply overwhelmed with the amount of users trying to access them at the same time. This requires a distributed massive server infrastructure (2 or more locations) to properly serve all of the requests. The issue with this is that it is a complete waste of money to build out this huge infrastructure for just a launch or a spike in traffic that may occur once in a while.  The real solution is to put a serious Content Delivery Network (CDN) in front of your server to cache your website’s content close to the end users and serve the content without ever going back to your server – providing you with offload, scalability, availability, and performance.

So next time you make or intend to make a viral video, make sure your there is a reputable CDN sitting infront of your website.

Charlie Oppenheimer recently published a blog titled Which is less expensive: Amazone or Self-hosted? This very well written and thought out blog has been getting a lot of attention so I thought I would share it here on my blog and of course, add my 2 cents.

1. Labor costs – He leaves them out in this comparison for simplicity sake. While I agree this is a fixed cost, I want to point out that this cost is definitely not even on both sides so it’s very difficult to omit this from both sides of the comparison.  Trying to compute this cost is extremely difficult as there are so many factors involved. Make an assumption that the fixed cost could me much higher on the self hosting side.

2. Spiky Traffic - Charlie mentions how this comparison is for a company that is further along and traffic is predictable. If you’re a startup you should be using the cloud since it’s less expensive (with labor) and can much better accomodiate spiky traffic. If your traffic is very spiky, you should seriously consider putting a CDN infront of this to cut down on the traffic served from your origin and allow you to be more scalable.

My Recommendations:

New Startups – Start in the cloud, Amazon or Rackspace is a great starting point. Put a free CDN like CloudFlare in front of it to handle basic caching and basic security.

Growing Startups – Stay in the cloud but bring in a CDN that can handle a bigger load and delivery your dynamic pages, I would recommend Edgecast or Akamai.

Established companies – Your traffic is for the most part predictable and at this point you prob have a full time IT staff so moving to a hybrid model is ideal. What I mean by hybrid is be self hosted but use a cloud player like Akamai to help deliver your content and sites very fast locally and globally. Akamai can provide some serious offload to your infrastructure and allow you to scale for traffic spikes. Akamai can also provide security against DDoS and web application attacks.

I recently came across a blog by Derek Singleton, It’s time for a Cloud UI Standard and thought it was so interesting that I wanted to comment on it in my blog. When I first read the title, I thought he meant creating a standardized UI for back-end cloud applications, those used by IT folks to manage their cloud infrastructure (which sparked another idea which I will also talk about). After reading his post, he means a standard UI for web based SaaS applications.

If you develop a Windows or Mac application, you can leverage the OS’s UI to quickly build your application. For example, no need to recreate the print icon, the standardized UI provides that for you. I agree with Derek, why shouldn’t there be a standard for web based applications? It would make it so much easier to design and develop a site if there is a standard UI.   As Derek also mentioned, end users will also appreciate this as all web based applications will have a similar look and feel.

While we’re talking about cloud standardization, I’m sure many IT organizations would appreciate a standardized API to manage their cloud services. This may already exist?

I love startups. I love the new ideas and new angles a startup brings to the marketplace. I recently stumbled upon CloudFlare, which I was told will change the game in the CDN market. Working for the best CDN out there, I’m always interested to see what our new competitors can offer. In short, CloudFlare is a CDN and web application security offering rolled into one very easy to use and implement solution. Their Marketing and web design team gets an A for putting together such a slick interface. It really takes just a few minutes to get started and the best part is their offering is FREE!

I was able to talk my friend who runs Los Angele’s hottest Hair and Beauty Blog, L.A. Hair, to give CloudFlare a try.  I told him we can setup 3rd party performance tests prior to activating CloudFlare so we can measure how much performance improves.  Since CloudFlare injects at the NameServer level, it is not possible to run concurrent tests like other CDNs. We setup two performance tests, one in US only and one Global. The test would request www.losangeles-hair.com/home every hour from over 50 agents globally distributed.

Men Lie, Women Lie, Numbers Don’t. Let’s take a look at the results:

Without CloudFlare -

Red – Global Average:8.99s

Blue  - US Average: 4.38s

With Cloud Flare:

Red – Global Average: 7.28s

Blue  - US Average: 3.80s

Looking at the two charts, we can see that with CloudFlare in the picture, we are getting a more reliable and flatter results, which is key for giving users the same experience every time they visit the site.  Looking at the numbers, CloudFare improved the blog 13.2% in the US and 19% Globally. I would hardly call these results “Supercharge” of my website as they claim, but you get what you pay for and in the case he didn’t pay a penny and got some ok results.

Where did CloudFlare improve and where did they not improve.

Most Improved areas:
Ottawa, Canada (5.57s reduced to 3.02s)
Seoul, Korea (8.53s reduced to 5.39s)
London (7.16s reduced to 5.37s)
Munich (7.33s reduced to 3.99s)
San Jose, Costa Rica (11.36s reduced to 2.74s)

Areas with little to no improvement:
China
Hong Kong
Seattle
Sao Paulo
Palo Alto
Vancouver
Sydney (actually got slower)
Auckland
New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta

While I would say these results are sub-par for CloudFlare to compete with any legit CDN, my friend is happy for L.A Hair and will keep the free service on. I think this is a great service for anyone to add to any website that doesn’t currently have a CDN or doesn’t generate revenue. If your site generates revenue I would used something a little more powerful because Google ranks based on page load speed.

I barely watch TV, part of the reason why I don’t watch TV is because my schedule is pretty crazy and I can’t sit down at a scheduled time to watch a show. I don’t really use DVR because I don’t like any TV show that much to take the effort to record it and then watch it. Besides, with so much to do on the internet why watch TV?

Once the NBA season ended I made the decision to cancel my cable TV and only keep the cable internet package. Why pay $100 a month when I’m barely watching TV? So I did some research online about setting up a media center with a Mac Mini. The best site I found was Apple Media Center. This guy did a great job explaining everything as easy as possible. He covers EVERYTHING. I only want to watch an occasional TV show, bit torrent movie, DVD and some live sports.

First thing I did was go on craigslist and find a good deal on a Mac Mini. I found a 2010 model 2.26 Ghz w/ 2GB ram and 160GB hard drive for $375. I then needed to find a Bluetooth keyboard/trackpad. After some extensive research on Amazon, I went with the RII Mini Bluetooth Wireless Keyboardfor $27.  For another $3 I bought a digital audio cable to my 5.1 Sony surround sound system that I had bought on CL many years ago for $150.  The Mac Mini has a digital output, my surround sound has never sounded this good!

The keyboard is pretty sweet, you get what you pay for, it def takes some getting used to. Not very easy to type fast or mouse around but for it’s size it is perfect.

I immediately installed Pandora desktop app (Pandora one subscription, best money spent), suddenly I had music in my living room, which was a huge break through. I then downloaded Hulu’s desktop app and signed up for Hulu Plus. Hulu has great content of TV shows, especially my favorite, The Daily Show (watching as I write this).  Hulu’s movies content is lacking so I also signed up for the streaming only Netflix option. So $7.99 for each one and I’m up to $16 a month. My cable internet is a sweet $29.99 a month – no taxes!

What about my sports? We’re currently in the NFL season, how am I gonna watch my games? There are so many sites out there that stream games. Here are a few:

http://www.snfallaccess.nbcsports.com  – Sunday Night Football

http://www.Veetle.com

http://www.Koratv.net

http://www.Justin.tv

www.thertv.eu

The bad part is you sometimes have to try a couple different feeds before you find a good one and there is the occasional buffering and lag but the bright side is you can watch ANY game and it’s all FREE.

I’m really happy with my setup, this is the future of TV. It’s really cool to be able to sit on my sofa and surf the web on my TV when I want a break from my computer.  I’m not limited to functionality like PS3 or Apple TV. I’ve also shared files with my laptop so I can pull pictures, movies, etc through the share. So I’m saving $70 a month off my cable bill and spending $16 a month on Hulu and Netflix.  Basically, in 8 months this media center will pay for itself

I came across this article and thought it would be excellent to share on my blog. Reading the article, I cannot stress how important point #9 is. One bad thing about SaaS is that you may feel stuck at the hands of the company you have signed up on as it seems they own all your data and moving it anywhere can be a big pain in the ass. As SaaS grows, so will the number of competitors and you don’t want to put yourself in a situation that you can not leave one SaaS provider for another.

I found this article on http://www.softwareadvice.com

9 Key Points to Negotiate in a SaaS Agreement

By: Derek Singleton

So you’ve decided to go with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). It’s easy to implement, easy to use and has a friendly subscription pricing model. You’re psyched.

Then comes the contract.

While SaaS has simplified enterprise software in many ways, you will still need to review, negotiate and execute a fairly complex contract when subscribing to an “enterprise-class” system. In this post, we will walk you through the nine most important things to consider when negotiating your SaaS agreement.

1. Pricing and Discounts
By pricing software as a utility service, SaaS vendors have simplified software licensing considerably. Most SaaS pricing is based on a subscription – monthly or annual payments for using the system during that period. The subscription pricing is typically based on one simple metric (e.g. users, records, projects) that roughly ties subscription fees to the value of the system. Finally, SaaS vendors tend to publish their pricing openly.

Even with this simplicity and transparency, there is still a need to be vigilant as a buyer. For one, don’t assume that straightforward published pricing means there isn’t room for some negotiation. Many SaaS vendors will discount up to 20% to win your business. The bigger the deal, the bigger the discount. Moreover, if the vendor’s pricing metric doesn’t fit with your business model, you might be able to negotiate custom pricing. Of course, you’ll have to make a cogent argument that the standard metric fails to balance price paid and value received.

2. Additional Costs
Another key component to pricing is ferreting out any extra costs early in the process. Published pricing may appear to be a good value, but extra fees can add up quickly. Common additional costs include extra users, customizations, integrations, third-party services, training and set-up fees. Work with your sales rep early in the process to understand what additional charges might apply to your account.

By far the best way to keep the additional costs down is to avoid customizations to functionality and integration with other systems. The inherent complexity in custom development and data integration makes these services expensive. We recommend that you start with the base system, make use of its core functionality and then assess how important the custom features or integrations are to your success. Start small, think big, grow quickly.

3. Term
If you are negotiating with a vendor over pricing discounts, subscription metrics and additional fees, expect to give something in return. Oftentimes, this means committing to an extended contract term. Vendors like longer terms because it provides more predictability in their revenue forecasting. Terms can be as short as 30 days or as long as five years. If the vendor wants a long-term subscription, we recommend that you start with the shortest – probably one or two years.

If you do agree to a longer term of three to five years, make sure you have an out clause. Typically this would provide a window of opportunity to break the contract during a specific time window. For example, it might allow you to walk after one month of using the system but before 90 days. Another example might be the ability to break the contract if certain levels of service are not provided consistently.

4. Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Regardless of what you pay for the system, reliability is paramount. The SLA is the vendor’s commitment to keeping the system up and running. It is typically expressed as a percentage of “up time.” You will almost always see the SLA represented as 99.9% or thereabouts. However, there is wide variation in how that number is calculated. Many vendors will simply start with 100% and subtract time during which their internal systems reported an error. Most of these SLAs leave far too much wiggle room for vendors.

If this new SaaS system is mission critical, push the SLA issue to see who is really ready to stand behind their service. The SLA topic is far too detailed to delve into all the considerations here, so we’ll refer you to this great blog post on SLAs. However, we’ll suggest you focus most on the penalty for breaking the SLA when negotiating. Usually these penalties are paltry discounts paid out against future purchases. Just pushing for bigger penalties will provide great insight into the reliability of the system.

5. Renewals
Hopefully, you will want to renew your contract. However, given that the renewal process provides an important exit opportunity from a bad contract, as well as an opportunity to re-negotiate, make sure you are still in control when the renewal date comes around. Be on the lookout for something known as an “evergreen” renewal. An evergreen automatically renews your term, usually 30 days prior to expiration.

If you spot an evergreen renewal, ask to remove it. When a company refuses to remove the clause, this is a red flag. The vendor should have to continue to win your business. Not the other way around. Vendors who offer quality services can be confident that their customers will renew based on value, not because the customer forgot to cancel in time.

6. Scalable Pricing
As your business changes, you may want to expand your use of the system; or, unfortunately, you might need to scale back your use if business deteriorates. It seems likely that your vendor will be more than happy to grow your account, but what if you need to downgrade? In the current economy, this is all too common. Present this scenario to the salesperson and know your options.

In most cases, the vendor will not let you downgrade until the end of your term – another reason to keep the term relatively short. However, if you get in a pickle, you might be able to offer to extend the term of your contract in return for lowering the scale of your subscription.

7. Support
No matter how good the system is, you will need a little help somewhere along the way. Knowing what help is included in your support package is very important. A key point you will want to know is how you will receive support. Is it delivered via the web, by email, phone, or chat? Also ask about the hours of support availability. Is support available 24 / 7 or only during business hours?

Moreover, you should know the quality of support included in your package. A valuable metric for support quality is the response time guarantee. The best support organizations guarantee a thirty minute response time for emergencies and two hours in all other cases. Having a dedicated support staff (i.e. a “customer success manager”) is also very helpful. Flesh these points out in the contract. Just keep in mind that high levels of support might cost a little extra.

8. Backups and Recovery
You’ve trusted someone else with valuable business data; you don’t want them to lose it. Luckily, almost every SaaS vendor performs regular data backups. However, some providers backup more frequently than others. Most vendors will backup data either on a daily or weekly basis. If you input valuable data every day, then you will want to ensure the provider performs a backup each day. Others might back up throughout the day.

The way the backups are performed is also important. Some vendors maintain numerous backups, while others maintain only one and overwrite the previous backup. Creating separate entries allows you to rollback to a prior date if necessary. This takes up a lot of space so you will probably have to ask for it specifically. The final consideration with backups is whether the data is backed up in a separate data center. Keeping it at a separate center will add a buffer against data loss in the event of a data center disaster.

9. Data export
Finally, you will want to include a clause about data export. Two things are key here: you should always retain ownership of your data and you should know how to get it back. This will be most important in two scenarios: 1) if you want to migrate to a new system because you are unsatisfied; or, 2) the vendor goes out of business and you need access to your data even before you select a new system.

The method for getting your data back will vary, but common methods include a XML, CSV, and HTML. For the very technical, a SQL export may be better. That’s all well and good but what happens if the company fails? Most SaaS vendors have prepaid the data center hosting company to “keep the lights on” for a couple months in case they go out of business. This will keep the doors open long enough to get your data exported.

In the comments section below, please share your personal experiences with contract neogtiations. Also, feel free to add other considerations that you feel are important.

Read more from MRP Software Advice at: http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/enterprise/9-key-points-to-negotiate-in-a-saas-agreement-1112310/#ixzz18ESYSOK4

Put Some Thunder into that Cloud
Cloud computing lacks performance

Cloud computing, by design, is intended for economies of scale. As I have blogged before in the past (see 10 Reasons why Cloud Computing is “Too Awesome”), the cloud has many benefits, but performance is not one of them (see Gripe #2 of Top 10 Cloud Computing Complaints).  With so many applications moving into the cloud and so many companies taking cloud initiatives, it is absolutely imperative that end user performance is not compromised. This article will dive into some of the bottlenecks experienced with the cloud and what actions can be taken to address these issues.

Moving your applications from your datacenter into a much larger datacenter (cloud) hosted by somebody else has many advantages. However, in regards to end user performance and server offload, you are only moving the problem around, not solving it. Sure once you’re in the cloud you can easily fire up a few extra servers, as needed, to handle the extra load. However, you can’t always plan for that extra traffic and how much will these additional servers end up costing?

Regardless of where your applications are hosted, they need to be accessed by your customers or users. As the distance of your users increase from the physical location of the cloud, so do your challenges. A user accessing your site from the other side of the globe may have to go through over a dozen of networks (hops) before it arrives to your website or server.  These networks are using BGP to route traffic that is entirely based on economical relationships they have contracted with each other, not for performance! Furthermore, HTTP is a very chatty protocol that is layered on top of TCP, a very reliable yet polite protocol. By polite I mean it waits for a packet to be received before sending the next packet.  This is fine if users are close to the datacenter but increase the number of hops and you increase the chance of a delay as TCP will wait until it hits timeout on lost packets before sending another one. During this delay your users experience what I like to call “hot freeze”, your application is running but it appears it has been frozen or not responding because it is waiting on a packet.

As web applications become more and more sophisticated these delays can become catastrophic. Programmers will need to write some very tight code that executes on the server and has minimal I/O traffic with the end user. Besides creating more efficient web applications there are other technologies available to battle the inherent issues of the internet. IP based acceleration products can accelerate from the transport layer (layer 4) to the application layer (layer 7) and come in the form of hardware (appliances) and services.  The appliances sit in the datacenter and help performance for local users, but have very little gain for global users. The services are led by CDN giant Akamai and many of its competitors such as NetDNA, fastSoft, Cotendo, Limelight, CDN Networks, and Level 3 Communications who offer similar services. Competition is heating up in the space as the different companies use various technologies to increase web performance between the end user and the cloud.

Regardless of which cloud service you put your application on, if performance is important you will need to budget for such acceleration services.  So if your cloud is too fluffy and missing a little thunder, take a look at the services these vendors offer so you can have your cake and eat it too!

Application Virtualization and VDI

Virtualization to the Max

It almost seems like virtualization is now everywhere. We started by first virtualizing servers, then we virtualized applications, and now we’re virtualizing desktops.  What else is there left to virtualize…ourselves?  One thing I’ve promised my readers when I started this blog is to report on the latest ideas of what I’m seeing customers do with virtualization technologies. Recently I came across a company in Canada who is looking to put together a desktop virtualization solution for professionals such as dentists, doctors, lawyers, etc.  Basically, they are providing a completely managed Desktop as a Service (DaaS) platform by leveraging VDI in combination with Application Virtualization.

What are they doing?

They are using VDI to give users a common desktop so regardless of what’s going on with their physical PCs or thin clients, the VDI environment will give them a safe and stable desktop.  I understand a lot of people out there are already deploying VDIs with applications to different customers. What sets this company in Canada apart from everyone else is that they’re doing this by managing just one vanilla Windows XP image.  This way they don’t need to manage and maintain several different VDI images for all their different customers. As a result, they require less management meaning better TCO.

What about the applications?

The applications are being streamed in an on-demand fashion by an application virtualization and streaming technology. The applications their clients require are packaged and stored on a single server that sits in the same location as the VDI servers.  The close proximity allows them to be streamed in an almost instantaneous matter.  By centrally managing the applications, upgrades and patches can easily be performed without having to create and deploy new VDI images to customer desktops saving enormous amount of IT personal time and making patching/upgrading mission critical.  In addition, by streaming the applications to various VDI instances from a central server, application licenses can be centrally managed and tracked so an organization can further benefit from better licensing utilization.

So how are they doing this?

They are using VDI and Application Streaming and Virtualization. They are using Citrix’s XenDesktop 4 to power the VDI and they are using Endeavors Technolgies’ Application Jukebox to stream and virtualize the applications. They have setup Active Directory to manage their users and have integrated both technologies to capitalize on the AD. Once they add applications to Application Jukebox, they can simply assign a license to an AD user group and all the users in that group can access that application via a web portal or the administrator can auto-deploy it to different VDI clients using group policy.

Benefits?

Professional type organizations don’t have the luxury to have an IT person at hand to troubleshoot OS or Application issues. They just need a solution that will work day in and day out without having to think about it.  This type of solution is very easy to adapt because it doesn’t require any additional purchase of hardware. If and when they need new hardware, they can buy an inexpensive thin client.  I think the monthly subscription price point for the DaaS will justify the outsourcing.  If it’s too expensive then people will not adapt but if priced correctly organizations will see it as a no brainer. Other benefits include being able to access your desktop from any web browser in the world and the ability to easily expand or move offices without experiencing any downtime.

What’s Next?

I believe this company will be successful with their business model of providing DaaS. They seem to already have a couple customers awaiting the release and expect to grow to thousands of desktops within a year. As that number increases, economies of scale will work in their favor and allow them to lower their monthly subscription fee while maintaining a healthy margin.

Application Stores, or App Stores, seem to be the latest rave. With Apple introducing the App Store for the iPhone a several years ago, the idea has definitely caught on for the mobile platform.  Blackberry and Verizon soon followed suit with their own version of the App Store. Now the idea has progressed from the mobile platform to the PC.  Wouldn’t it be cool if you can just login to a website and be able to start running applications as easy and seamlessly as it’s done via iTunes? This idea is soon to be a reality.

Citrix last month launched Dazzle, it’s version of an App Store with virtualization and streaming of applications. I’ve demoed Dazzle and I like the interface, ease, and quickness of applications becoming available.  While Dazzle is aimed at the enterprise, I want to take this blog and discuss what is needed to properly build an App Store for the consumer.

An App Store consists of four components: hosting, e-commerce, delivery technology, and content.  Each component is equally important because if you are missing one of the four parts you won’t have an App Store.  For example, without content you won’t have any applications to sell.  The challenge today is getting software vendors to buy into the idea of an App Store and the possibility of having to change their licensing module to a SaaS subscription model.

1. Hosting

An App Store is similar to a website in that it will need to be hosted on a server somewhere on the Internet. Depending on how much traffic you anticipate and how many applications will be delivered will determine how many servers will be required to distribute the load.  Ideally you will want a distributed system with a server in each region of the United States. I recommend Rackspace as they are great hosting platform. You may also consider leveraging a web caching service so you can do more with less.

2. E-commerce platform

Once you have your hosting setup the next step is to find or build an e-commerce platform. The site must be able to manage users, accounts, billing, and make the applications available once they have been purchased.  The site should be able to integrate with the delivery technology you pick. Shopify.com is a pretty cool site but will need an add-on similar to Fetch to make it an app store. For a mock up app store you can checkout http://ondemand.endeavors.com

3. Delivery Technology

The third crucial piece of technology that is needed is a way to deliver the applications via the Internet in a way that there is no download or install process. The application should stream down and become available to use instantly.  The delivery technology should be able to manage upgrades seamlessly. In the case of a subscription model, if the user cancels their subscription it should prevent the user from running the application.  Also, to make it simple and easy to use similar to the iTunes experience, the application needs to be delivered ready to use with full integration with the host OS. The end user experience of the application should not be changed meaning proper start menu icons, files associations, printing, and integration with other applications/devices. Endeavors Technologies has a product called Application Jukebox – SaaS Edition that fits the bill and was designed for this use.  It is designed to be integrated with an e-Commerce site and deliver any type of Windows application over the wide area network.

4. Content

Finally, the last piece of puzzle is content. Without content you simply just have some cool technology.  Whatever the applications may be or the purpose of the App Store, you will need the permission of the software vendors to be able to resale their applications in such a manner. In the future we will see App Stores for nich markets such as Small Business applications or Engineering applications. The owner of the App Store will seek out all the applications in this field and make them available for customers to download.  Customers will have a huge variety of applications to pick from.  They will see titles they have never heard of and will have the opportunity to quickly evaluate the application without actually installing anything or affecting their system.

The idea of an App Store for delivering Windows based applications is already cooking in Europe and other parts of the world. It will only be a matter of time before it catches on in the United States. Once it does, it will change the way we acquire and think about software. Like iTunes did for music, I see it cutting down on piracy as it makes it easier and more affordable to obtain what you’re looking for rather then trying dodgy pirate sites that may get you a virus.

With Apple launching its long anticipated version of a tablet type device named iPad, analysts have had a hard time getting their heads around the WOW factor of this device. Many have been mocking it, calling it just “a giant iPod.”  Well, it really is.  However, it is big enough that you can actually do things on it, compact enough you can easily take it anywhere, and less expensive than a decent laptop so it has it’s own niche in the market.

Some of the hype around the iPad is its book store but I don’t think anyone is going to shell out $500 for a book reader, besides, staring at a color screen for hours must be very straining on the eyes compared to Amazon Kindle’s electronic paper display technology. Nobody is really going to buy an iPad to listen to music  so it leaves it with movies/you tube and web browsing and that’s not enough reasons to spend $500 for an additional device.

So what will captivate people to make the iPad a success for Apple and make these analysts bite their tongue? Really cool apps would do it.  Apps that need a larger screen than an iPhone/iPod but are simple enough they don’t need a full-blown laptop.  Educational apps can definitely take advantage of the touch screen interface and provide real hands on learning experience. They must be simple to use so children can easily play with them.

The iPad is really designed for the ultimate web experience so I wonder if Apple will finally support Flash so you can run cool cloud computing apps.  With the 3G version you can access the internet anywhere there is WiFi or AT&T coverage.  Which brings me to the whole point of this blog. With internet connectivity and a device with a big enough screen this will open the floodgates of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). VDI is basically a desktop that you can access from anywhere using any type of device. You can have all your application on this VDI. Citrix has a product called XenDesktop that can seamlessly deliver a desktop to any device using minimal bandwidth. Imagine having access to your entire work machine from your iPad.  You can login and view a file, work on a document, access a file on a network share, send an email via outlook exchange server, or do whatever it is you do on your work machine from anywhere you have internet access with your compact little iPad.

Devices like this iPad will put the cool factor in VDI and make it a more practical deployment.