Google Application Engine vs. Amazon Web Services

Well AWS (Amazon Web Services) with a reported 330,000 developers now has significant new competition from the just announced Google Application Engine. Google's new cloud computing service went into limited beta on Monday and was opened to the first 10,000 users to sign up based on the post in the Google App Engine blog. It appears those 10,000 slots have already been taken since when I tried to sign up I received a message saying I would be added to the waiting list. Google's App Engine beta which I assume will turn into the base level service once the service opens to more widespread use will most likely be free based on Google's past performance. So what is Google offering users well here are some of the details on the capacities offered to the beta users - 3 applications, 500 MB of storage/application, 200 million CPU megacycles/day and 10GB of bandwidth each for in and out per day, which is suppose to equate to roughly 5 million page views per month. Amazon Web Services on the other hand has charges for storage, various service requests and bandwidth just like other hosted solution and currently no base level free service. So the question is will Amazon be forced to offer a free base level service to compete with Google or do the 330,000 current Amazon developers represent a large enough mass with enough momentum to keep Amazon from having to offer a free version, it will be interesting to see what happens.

In the mean time AWS is already hosting well known services or parts of those services such as Twitter, 37signals, Smugmug, Elephant Drive and Facebook Apps. So if AWS is something you want to consider further along with joining the ranks of the many AWS developers checkout the following -

AWS Developer Connection
AWS Blog

In addition O'Reilly just published Programming Amazon Web Services if you're really interested in getting into AWS.

Since Google just announced their service the documentation is currently only offered online. In addition Google has an application gallery for some of the applications that have already been created.

As far as programming options AWS supports C#, Java, PHP and Ruby while Google only supports Python at this time. So if Google App Engine intends to compete head on with AWS it would seem that Google will need to broaden their supported programming options in the future. But is Google really interested in competing head with Amazon I'm not so sure of that. Also due to Google's infrastructure and how they build applications they may want to focus on only supplying the limited Python interface.

One other point of interest, if this does turn into true head on competition between Amazon and Google, will Google in particular have to reveal more about their infrastructure to satisfy prospective customers due diligence needs as they decide which service to use, at some point you would think so.

In the meantime tell me what you think about Amazon Web Services if you already use them. Same for the Google Application Engine if you were lucky enough to get in as part of the initial beta group. Or is there another service you think is superior. Do you think Yahoo and Microsoft will expand Office Live Workspaces in order to more fully compete in the cloud computing arena.

Xoopit beta Invites

Here are links to articles by Techcrunch and GigaOM with links for Xoopit beta Invites. Let me know if the beta invites run out so that I can remove this post.

Xoopit Inbox 2.0 for Gmail

Xoopit lanuched there Inbox 2.0 interface to Gmail today. Currently you need an invite to be a part of this private beta. Xoopit is also working on interfaces to Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, AOL and .Mac. Once I have access into the beta I will pass on my first impressions and share any extra invites if they are generous enough to grant any to the initial beta testers.

Fancast has Star Trek TV episodes

If your a fan of Star Trek the TV show then you might want to checkout a new currently free (I have no indication there will be a charge in future but Fancast is run by Comcast) service called Fancast. Fancast has 77 of the 80 original Star Trek TV episodes plus numerous other current and past TV shows to stream to your PC. I was not able to find any hardware requirements for Fancast but it runs fine on my over 4 yr. old PC. You will need a decent broadband connection based on my observed average download rate of 2mbps while watching. The picture quality is decent when displayed at roughly 1/4 screen size but definitely lower quality when you go to full screen size. Your viewing is also interrupted by commercials every 10-15 mins. but commercial breaks I observed are shorter than on normal broadcast TV.

Overall in my opinion programs are watchable but don't get rid of your regular TV and obviously not even close to HD. But when you consider you can watch the program you want on your schedule and not the networks this type service has some real value in my book.

Fancast is currently in beta but you do not need an invite and you don't have to register unless you want to save favorites and such.

Xobni Insight for Outlook Beta

Xobni is a new email overlay/addon which is currently in Beta and is initially targeting Outlook 2003/2007 but is suppose to later work with other email interfaces (Xobni please make Gmail your next target, read my previous post My Gmail IMAP experience for my reasons why Outlook to Gmail via IMAP is not the answer and also since my Outlook usage is continuing to fade). So anyway I just received my invite for Xobni today and proceeded to load it up and let it loose on Outlook. My initial reaction is I like what Xobni is doing to improve email and so far no major problems. I really like the speed of the search capabilities although I wish I could get Google results vs. Yahoo. One area that still needs improved speed is when reading through email sequentially Xobni takes at least 10 secs. sometimes considerably longer to pull up information on the next person when I move from one email to the next. Not sure why the Xobni search box is so fast but moving from one email to the next is not.

In the meantime I will do additional testing of Xobni for Outlook but I'm really hoping for a Gmail version sooner rather than later. If you need an invite to Xobni I currently have 4 available so let me know by adding a comment with your email address.