Ohh The Google App Engine

I am very sure you would be drowning in Google App Engine (GAE) announcements news with people excited/ disappointed with it. We are digital people and hence we can only be 0 (disappointed) or 1 (excited).

At first sight, it looks like Amazon’s AWS. But, it isn’t. It is more like a walled garden. You can only code in Python (atleast for now). You can only use G Ads. You can integrate only Google apps (signup, gmail, etc.). Term of use is one more dark area. No one is talking about privacy concerns.

I can see the Google’s business model. They want to show you more Ads. They gave you blogs (only Google ads), they gave you Gmail, they are giving you Android and now, they will give a platform on which you build web-apps and many more. The model is simple but I seriously doubt the model. It is not sustainable.

Nevertheless, I am very interested to know what Google will do to sustain this model and its sliding stock price.

I am not against the whole concept but GAE is trying to lock down developers into a platform and an Ad platform which is what is worrying me. Are we seeing one more Microsoft in making? Only this time, Google is trying to lock users using opensource tools.

I would prefer AWS anyday since it is flexible both in hardware and software options, unlike GAE. Let us see how the developer community take this one. There is no traction among developers both for Opensocial and Android. No wonder, $10 Million was announced to develop apps for Android.

To sum it up: If you are late to the market, Open (opensocial, android) it. If you are first few and very strong, keep it as walled garden and monetize on the ad . This is Google philosophy.