Summary

There was a report released April 15^th by McKinsey called “Clearing the Air on Cloud Computing.”  The premise of the report was that the cloud was actually quite a bit more expensive for large corporations than running their own datacenters.  While it allows a nod to small to medium businesses in stating that the cloud may make sense for them, the top line message was that cloud services overcharge for things that companies could do for themselves.  The piece ends up being a push for virtualization, and knocks Windows as a main cost issue for moving to the cloud.

Report Out

The report starts out with McKinsey’s view on the cloud.  They lay out that the premise for the cloud has been lower cost and faster time to market, but the reality is that these claims are overstated and that “cloud computing” is at the top of the Gartner hype-cycle.

The report takes it one step further to claim that since there is no agreed upon definition for what the “cloud” is (apparently they found a study that found 22 definitions for the “cloud”, which seems low to me considering the conversations I hear at conferences and on news groups), large companies should not think about “internal clouds” but rather focus on the immediate benefits of virtualization of servers, storage and network operations.  They posit that the newness of the cloud is distracting IT departments’ attention from technologies that “actually deliver sizeable benefits; e.g. aggressive virtualization.”

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Everyone seems to be all over this netbook meme that’s been floating around for a while.  When I first played with a netbook, it was an Asus 9” Eee PC.  I have to admit, I didn’t get it at first.  The machine that I was given to borrow over a few days was running Windows XP.  It had a very small keyboard.  Do I have large hands?  No.  (You know what they say about guys with small hands right?  They still can’t type on netbooks.)  I just found the keyboard very difficult to acclimate to for even basic tasks.

I returned the netbook, and a couple of months later was treated to another loaner.  This time it was the Lenovo S10.  Ahhhh, now we’re talking.  The keyboard was still very frustrating, and while “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” turned out something closer to “tje qujkfs bokraskdj fokse sfdl; sdlkt” I did eventually get used to the keyboard (we’re talking a few hours of use) and can now touch type on it no problem.

My issue with the netbook was that it’s effing slow.  Don’t listen to what anyone tells you.  It’s slow. The Atom processor is slow.  The memory (even with 2GB) didn’t feel sufficient.  The graphics were painful, and when loading web pages, which have a habit of stressing your graphics if there are any flash pieces or AJAX-y stuff going on, things seemed to bog down.  This was all on XP.

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There’s an interesting article out this morning about the death of YouTube.  Granted, the article is penned by a competitor, so it’s always necessary to take such proclamations with a grain of salt.  However, the article elucidates some interesting data about the massive online video property.

Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube is losing $470 million a year for Google.  That’s a staggering number, and one that is only addressed in the article as the potential for YouTube as a going concern.  How long, the article asks, will Google front the cash to support this loss generator?

As a finance nerd, and GOOG shareholder, I like to think about things a little differently.  What is the implied impact of YouTube to Google shareholders?  Doing some simple math reveals the following:

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I am not the first person to write a review for the financial software service Mint.com.  Nor will I be the last.  However, after using the product for just a week, I felt compelled to reach out to my readers and let them know that if you have as much of a deep seeded hatred for personal financial software tools (*cough* Money…*COUGH* Quicken) as I do, then you have most likely given up on the category entirely.

Myself, I needed another run at a personal financial software tool like I needed another run at dealing with the tech support line at the cable company.  With the impending arrival of my third child, and the economy being in the state in which it is, it is no longer suitable to utter "leave it to me" to my wife when issues of our personal finances come up.  You see, she went to the bank and withdrew a pocket full of "I don’t give a shit" for whenever I would try to insist that my Wharton MBA was sufficient credential for her to avoid such topics.

Any time I have tried to use any of the aforementioned software packages, they would prove too onerous for the family to use.  Further, it was complicated to ensure that we could share a file across machines.  Synchronization became a complete pain in the ass.  Bottom line – I loathed the software.

The number one problem I had with any of these packages was simply getting started.  The need for the opening balance was enough to derail most efforts.  Don’t you dare try to use Quicken or Money without reconciliation of that opening balance.  You want to get your transactions into the system?  Sure, no problem.  Want to have them categorized?  You’re on your own.  Want the data that the bank provides to be enough so that your software would simply figure out how to auto-classify new transaction?   Good luck with that.  Forget to download transactions for a month and you only use your debit card for all transactions?  Your night is ruined.

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The Kids

Admit it.  You got served.  I don’t want to hear no complaining.  If you would be so kind as to add a comment with your first name and something along the lines of the following “I fell for it,” I would be much obliged.

For those people who are happening on this page and don’t know what the joke is about, here’s an email that I sent out as part of an April Fool’s Day joke.

I wanted to reach out to you as Christy and I have made some pretty big decisions, and some of them have direct impact on you. As you know, we are expecting our third child, and as part of the preparation process, we have revisited our will. One of the provisions that wasn’t specifically laid out in our previous version was what would happen to our kids should both of us meet an untimely demise. It’s grim thinking, but apparently we need to think about these things. They lawyer was pretty clear on that.

In any event, after speaking with the lawyer and understanding the laws, and how the courts generally frown upon people taking custody of children if they are “too old” or “too far removed from the child rearing process,” we have been forced down a path of making a decision that we didn’t really think we would ever have to make.

Chickpea is growing up into quite the young lady, and has surprised us with much of her early development. We’re psyched that she will be able to attend Montessori this coming year. Poo Poo McGoo, on the other hand, is progressing at a more normal rate, and has become quite the train collector. He loves Thomas. I tell you this because it’s important you connect with both of them, and their coming sister. Christy and I could think of no one better than the both of you to be responsible for our kids should the worst of worst things come to pass. Given the strength of your own relationship, appreciation for the importance of education, and financial stability, this just made sense to us.

I know this may seem like it’s coming out of left field, and we definitely want to talk about it ASAP. Email affords a better way to get you links and info so you can consume the data and reflect on how you feel about this. Nothing is codified, which is why we are coming to you now, but the lawyers said that we don’t even need your signatures on anything. As for those links, here’s one to a page with a great shot of the kids and a set of additional links to legal precedents and articles about this sort of thing.  It’s probably best that you have a look at the data and really understand and digest what the “no signatures required” bit is all about.