Predictions: How did we do in 2009?

Last year around this time, Appistry began a new tradition by publishing our predictions for 2009 and hosting our first predictions webinar. In anticipation of Wednesday’s Appistry Predicts 2010 event, I spent some time reviewing the predictions we offered at the end of last year, and reflecting upon the year that unfolded for us. While 2009 was largely characterized by global financial malaise, there was plenty of excitement and activity in the cloud computing arena… Enough to make predicting the future difficult, for sure.

So let’s take a look at how we did. (If you’d like to follow along on your own, check out the bonus links at at the bottom of this post.) Here are the predictions we made for 2009:

1. 2009 Will Herald the “Year of the Cloud” for Enterprises
Virtualization has matured; the economy is sinking while business costs are rising; and private clouds have already captured enterprise attention for their inherent security and reliability. These factors and more have created an ideal environment for enterprise cloud computing to thrive in 2009.

Verdict: Nailed it! While most enterprises questioned the relevance of cloud computing in 2008, 2009 saw cloud rise squarely to the level of the CIOs agenda. That doesn’t mean the battle for the enterprise is over. Hardly. But we haven’t talked to a CIO in the last six to nine months who wasn’t working to sort out her cloud strategy.

2. Cloud Platforms Will Begin to Overtake the App Server in 2009
Oracle and others will continue to fight a losing battle to keep their legacy application server cash cows alive. Oracle will do everything it can to protect its Oracle Application Server and BEA WebLogic franchises. In no way should they be counted out of the market, but newer, cloud-specific platforms are poised to further erode aging middleware options.

Verdict: Yup. The traditional Java app server has long been on the decline, but as recently as 2008 it was believed the successor would be lighter-weight frameworks like Spring and open source containers like Tomcat. That transition is still happening, but cloud is playing a huge role in reshaping the future of the Java application platform, and the application platform in general.

3. HP Finally Works Its Way into Middleware
While competitors scramble to save the app server, companies such as HP will be presented with an opportunity to capitalize on their competitors’ app server weaknesses. Without the constraints of older middleware that must be retrofitted for the cloud, HP is poised to use cloud computing to take market share from IBM’s traditionally reliable middleware business. In the past, these two behemoths have battled it out around hardware and services, but HP could smell blood in ‘09 and look to take advantage of a rare IBM weakness in software.

Verdict: What can we say? We gave Kevin a hard time about this one on last year’s call, and I expect us to have fun ribbing him about it again this year. Maybe this was a prediction rooted in nostalgia, maybe it was rooted in knowing the true heart of the dragon, but I don’t think we saw the dragon breathing any fire in 2009.

4. Several Organizations Will Offer Standards for Cloud Computing – Standards Debate Rages On
Historically, technologies have evolved and succeeded because of standards. The process of getting to these standards is often a dirty, political and hard-fought mess. 2009 will see this same evolution take shape around the cloud. Already we’re seeing several attempts at standardization, including IBM’s RCC. The year ahead is just the beginning; we don’t expect true standards to emerge until well into 2010. The question is: Who will win the battle and drive the process?

Verdict: I think we called this one spot on. Lots of activity, proposals, drafts and working groups in ‘09, and more than a few “marketing standards,” but the real standards will start to emerge in 2010. Good luck getting the big boys to adopt them though.

5. Amazon Will Release Tools to Enter the Platform Arena
While most eyes are on Google and Microsoft, Amazon has emerged as the company doing the heaviest lifting to advance cloud computing. Look for Amazon to move up the stack by offering additional tools for cloud developers in 2009, putting them at odds with the partner ecosystem they’ve built around companies such as RightScale, Elastra, 3tera and Appistry.

Verdict: We got this one too. Maybe you don’t want to give us credit for the EC2 console AMZN launched in January, since it was largely anticipated by the community in advance of our prediction, but the company’s announcement of the AWS Toolkit for Eclipse in March; Elastic MapReduce in April; CloudWatch, Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing in May; and Amazon Relational Database Service in October, clearly signaled the company’s desire to be more than “just” the provider of bare metal we all thought of them as.

Pretty darn good if I do say so myself, and worth every penny you paid for them!

We’re all looking forward to our 2010 Predictions event, and we hope you can join us for the discussion.

Bonus Links: Once you’ve registered for today’s, check out these bonus links:

1. MP3 recording of last year’s predictions event, Appistry Predicts 2009
2. PDF slides from Appistry Predicts 2009
3. Full Transcript from Appistry Predicts 2009