Hosting 2.0

I’m not a fan of putting labels on things including this Web 2.0 business but I do like to think about things in terms of versions being a software developer. I’ve been involved with some form of web hosting related work since 1995 and have seen the industry evolve quickly every step of the way.

I like to think of the hosting industry as the construction company industry that builds new buildings for the general public to use. In addition to building the houses they are, if they are a good construction company, thinking about how they can improve the stability and longevity of their buildings. I’ve seen a few hosting companies that are creating grid computing platforms which promise improved stability but what about improved accessibility. It’s worrisome to think that Google is one of the few companies that enjoys the benefits of distributed hosting across the globe although they have allowed people to piggyback on their own network and systems using Google App Engine.

So why are the traditional hosting companies so behind? I’m sure it has a lot to do with the cost of implementing an extremely reliable, scalable, and easy to use system. Google has plenty of buying power and surely one of their first priorities as a business was building out a distributed network that would ensure instant access to their products. The current slew of hosting companies can’t compete with that unless they actually invest money in building distributed networks along with grid computing methodologies. In essence Google is a hosting company but they are using unconventional methods from the point of view of old school hosting companies. There’s the App Engine and Google Apps which are certainly not unrelated technologies knowing how Google takes on the same mantra as Microsoft and tries to integrate their apps in order to streamline software usage processes.

So is Google the future of hosting as a whole? I’m not so sure about that as the price for dedicated hosting goes down there’s nothing stopping traditional hosting companies from creating their own distributed grid environments and sell their hosting services at a reasonable price.