The United States government is embracing the cloud computing model in an effort to address its rising IT costs.  US federal CIO Vivek Kundra recently announced the launch of the Apps.gov website where US government agencies can acquire and deploy cloud computing applications.  While sensitive and secret data will continue to be handled by secure government-operated facilities, there is vast potential for savings for Uncle Sam if agencies can leverage low-cost, web-based technologies for routine, non-sensitive applications.

Cloud service infrastructure and application providers like Amazon and Google are certainly eying the public sector market with keen interest. The US government alone spends over $75-billion on IT, for example.  These technology companies are thus working hard to address issues related to the security, privacy, and data management concerns that are typically associated with a move to the cloud computing paradigm.

Nothing signals that a technology has arrived better than a fight over standards.  The slug-fest that recently broke out over the “Open Cloud Manifesto” shows that the cloud computing concept is no longer simply hazy vapour-ware.

Cloud computing refers to the trend where computing power is becoming a utility that is generated remotely in the in the Internet’s vast backbone infrastructure (”the cloud”) and delivered as a service through the web.  The so-called Open Cloud Manifesto essentially calls on the major IT vendors to avoid erecting proprietary fences for the cloud platforms they are developing.  The hope is that with open standards, customers can easily port data, applications and services between different cloud platforms.

While few would argue against the benefits of such open standards, there is certainly going to be a bitter fight over exactly whose standards and conventions to adopt before the dust settles.  This a par for the course for any emerging technology.

Currently, IBM, SAP and Cisco appear to be driving forces behind the manifesto – these are services and commodity hardware providers who stand to benefit greatly when cloud computing really does take off.  At this stage however, the real pioneers behind cloud technology are absent from the list.  The likes of Amazon, Google, Salesforce.com and Microsoft are, not surprisingly, more cautious about potentially giving up any competitive advantage they have built up for the sake of altruistic openness.

The current flap is just a minor skirmish.  As cloud computing grows at its current pace, a full-scale standards war could well be on the horizon.

Download the Open Cloud Manifesto Draft 1.0.9 as pdf here.

Google is not letting the tough economic climate cloud its long-term vision. Declaring that “the current downturn is an ideal time to invest in nascent companies”, Google announced the launch of Google Ventures – its latest venture capital fund.

Google Ventures will be focusing on early stage investments in young start-ups. It is expected to invest up to US$100 over the next 12 months – not just in the internet and software space, but also in areas such as clean-energy, bio-tech and health care.

So, if you believe you’re on to the next big thing and could do with a financial leg-up, why not pitch your vision to Google Ventures?

Google recently announced in its blog improvements in its search technology which shows that it is getting serious about semantic technology.  Semantic technology is considered by many to be the future of the Web.

In essence, semantic technology encodes meanings separately from data, content and application code.  Through this, software is supposed to be able to provide more intelligent and responsive interaction than with traditional informational technologies alone.

In the search space, the holy-grail of this “meaning-centered” approach is to enable so-called “natural language queries.”  This is the idea that you can ask natural questions or discuss things at a conceptual level as you would with another human-being and expect the search engine to understand you and provide relevant responses.  This is very different from how search is conducted currently where you basically search for keywords that you guess would be relevant to your topic.

In Google’s case, the new technology can apparently “better understand associations and concepts related to your search” – thus enabling Google to offer you even more useful related searches.  This will be presented as an expanded list of useful related searches and the addition of longer search result descriptions.

For more insight into the Semantic Web, check out this “Introduction for Noobs” by Manu Sporny below:

Yahoo Mail users can now access their email even when they are offline. Yahoo has just released the Yahoo Zimbra Desktop as a free download for both Mac and Windows.

Zimbra Desktop is an application that you install locally on your PC. It functions like a traditional e-mail client such as Microsoft Outlook or Apple’s Mail App. In fact, the Zimbra interface has been designed to closely mirror Outlook’s general look and functionality.

Zimbra Desktop’s main benefit is that it gives you offline access to your Webmail accounts – it even works with Gmail accounts. It also throws in some productivity elements into the mix – specifically spreadsheet and word-processing applications; however, these are quite rudimentary even compared to Google Docs applications.

The Zimbra Desktop’s email features are certainly impressive – tagging, conversations threading, comprehensive search, etc. However, it does not seem able to synchronize with the Yahoo Address Book or Calendars just yet.

The Zimbra Desktop technology originates from Zimbra Inc – a company that Yahoo acquired in September 2007. Its primary product is the Zimbra Collaboration Suite – a full-featured collaboration platform that supports email, instant messaging, group calendars & contacts, and document sharing.

Intelligent Enterprises’ Doug Henschen reports on his Q&A session with product manager at Google Enterprise Rishi Chandra.

Chandra provides some revealing clues to Google strategic thrust. Having completely dominated the Search game, Google is taking aim squarely at the Enterprise space – and it’s chosen medium is Web Applications.

Google is clearly positioning itself as an application platform in its effort “to go from consumers to the enterprise.”

Read the full text of this interview here.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch is reporting that New South Wales Department of Education in Australia has accepted a bid to switch over the email accounts of 1.5 million students over from Microsoft Exchange to Gmail (via Google Apps).

NSW DoE was unahppy because their 2004 MS Exchange installation cost 33million and took 3 years. It’s unclear why the system took so long to setup. The Gmail roll-out will increase current email storage allocated for each student from 35MB to 6GB.

The move represents a big win for Google – which is breaking into Microsoft’s mail and office collaboration market, at every scale. Last year Macquarie University elected to shift the email accounts of its 68,000 students and recent graduates onto Gmail. This new instillation will create what’s being reported as the single largest private deployment of Gmail. On the other end of the scale small and medium business are also increasingly switching away from Microsoft Exchange and Outlook, to SaaS services like Google Apps, and Yahoo’s Zimbra.

Over the past decade, Google has entrenched itself as the web’s best-known brand. There can be few web users who have not used Google’s core internet search service.

But have you ever wondered exactly what resources are required behind the scenes to keep Google’s various services humming along? A Cnet blogger reports on a presentation by a Google insider that reveals some of the fascinating inner workings of Google.

Most interestingly, Google ignores conventional server vendors and largely builds its own technology using ordinary components. It apparently prefers to build reliability on the software level rather than rely on expensive high-end fault tolerant hardware.

Fireman poles, slides, games rooms, aquariums and plenty of free food – all in a day’s work at Google apparently.

Have a look at this BBC clip to get a peek into Google’s wacky offices – certainly a far cry from the soul-sapping cubicle dreariness of most corporate offices.

According to Frank Gens – IDC’s VP of research – IT majors like IBM, Microsoft and HP are beginning to take Web 2.0 and on-demand technologies seriously. He expects these vendors to aggressively target the collaboration and business-oreitnted social networking space this year. Not surprising, given that more than 40% of enterprises are expected to have a social network deployed internally by year end.

IBM in January unveiled its revamped Lotus Web 2.0 platform – a suit of collaborative services that tap into the online content & social networking trend. Gens predicts that the company will soon crash the Software-as-a-Service party with Salesforce.com-style “cloud-based” solutions.

Microsoft has been aggressively promoting on-demand versions of its key enterprise solutions. Keen to have its cake and eat it too, Microsoft is adopting a “software-plus-service” strategy which adds collaborative online functionality to its traditional software products so as not to cannibalize its cash cow.

Of course, the Web 2.0 incumbents will not take this challenge lying down. Google and its ilk have been busy “corporatizing” their services and solutions.

Let the competition begin!