I've been using Google Music since it was made available several months ago. In my opinion the service works great, offering a clean user interface and instant streaming to just about any device with a browser. One limitation that had previously concerned me was the inability to download your music back from the cloud (unless you had an Android device). As a result I was never willing to delete my local content, just in case Google ever decided to the end their cloud music experiment. Thankfully, in a recent silent update, Google have rectified this concern.
When logged into Google Music (via the browser) you can now highlight any album or song and select "download". This will immediately start downloading your music as 320kbps MP3 files (not bad at all).
Cloud services offer so many advantages, however it's a little scary if you have no way of getting your data back. Let's hope Google (and others) continue to make the "download option" readily available.
Personally I think this could be the final nail in the coffin for the traditional MP3 player, with the future being focused on Internet connected end points, such as smartphones and tablets. This means instead of having a massive library stored locally, you will instead buy and store your music in the cloud and access it either by downloading it to an end point or streaming directly over the Internet.
The great thing about this model is that you no longer need to worry about local storage or backup and you now have access to your entire library (not just the stuff you synchronised that morning) from anywhere in the world. It also enables new ways of sharing what you are listening to via social integration and allows you to purchase music as a service (monthly or yearly) instead of per song or by album. This is an incredibly powerful prospect and, if implemented well, could be the next major milestone for the music industry.
Unfortunately, up to this point, these new services have only been available in the US, however thanks to Lifehacker it was discovered that you only need to "appear from the US" during the initial sign-up and from that point on you can use Google Music from anywhere in the world. The only limitation is that you can't access the online store at this time, but you can upload your own music collection (which is what most people will be doing anyway).
So does Google Music live up to the hype and will this new cloud model be the revolution that I am predicting?
To get started with Google Music all you need is a Google account (for example Google Mail). If you already have an account simply login to music.google.com, accept the user agreement and you will have access to upload 20,000 songs for free.
Once logged in you are presented with a very clean, very simple user interface which is something that I wish Apple would take note of with iCloud. To get started you have two options, either "Upload Music" or "Shop for Music".
For this example I am going to upload some music from my Mac. The first thing you need to do is download a small application (the Music Manager) which guides you through the upload process. As you can see from the image below there are three upload options, I chose to pick my music from a folder (as I started with a small collection), however you could set it loose on iTunes, where you can select your entire library or individual playlists.
Once you have selected your music, the Music Manager automatically starts the upload process. With large music collections this could obviously take a long time, however thankfully you don't need to wait for your entire collection to upload, because as soon as one song is available in the cloud the Music Manager automatically moves on.
At this point the rest of your music will be uploaded in the background, but any music that is already available can instantly start being played. This is a very useful feature and reduces the pain of the initial upload.
At this point the Music Manager setup process is complete. To check on your music uploads or to launch Google Music you can simply click the menu bar icon (as shown in the image below). This icon can also be disabled for people who like to keep things minimal (like me).
The great thing about Google Music is that it will always keep an eye on your iTunes library, playlists or selected music folders. So, for example, if you add a new album it will instantly be uploaded to Google Music (this feature can be turned off). One thing to note is that once the music has been uploaded to the cloud you are safe to remove (or move) the local copy, as this will not modify the cloud version. To delete music from the cloud you must login to Google Music.
If you want to change any of Google Music's settings, for example selected folders or upload options, simply access the Music Manager Preferences pane from the menu bar icon or Mac OS X System Preferences.
That's it! You now have your music in the cloud for instant availability from music.google.com and most modern smartphones (Android and iPhone). Playing music is as simple as clicking the song or album you are looking for and it will immediately start streaming. You can also add search for music, tag favorites and create custom playlists.
So far my experience of Google Music has been very positive. Everything has worked exactly as advertised, with a painless upload process and an elegant, responsive user interface that is very simple to use. All of my uploaded music has been readily available and streaming starts almost instantly, even over 3G. The only issue I have encountered is when I first tried to stream music to my iPhone 4S using Safari, which for some reason required me to reset the browser before any song would start playing.
As I am not an Android user I can't comment on the mobile integration (as iOS doesn't currently have a native app), however I have heard everything works well and I believe if Google Music becomes a success, then this will be a great selling feature for Android devices. Let's just hope that Google continue to invest and improve this service and don't drop it like the ill fated Wave and Buzz.
Last week I presented as an industry expert speaker at the IDC Virtualisation and Cloud Security Conference 2011. The all day event, which included over 120 senior IT and security professionals, focused on the benefits of virtualisation and cloud computing, whilst ensuring appropriate control is maintained through compliance and security. The three main focus areas were:
How a virtualised environment can be made secure.
How to ensure critical data is protected with a suitable DLP policy to counter potential internal or external attacks.
What new threats you will face when adopting cloud technology. Could virtualisation actually provide a safer IT environment?
As always the conference was a great success with some interesting presentations from Intel, VMware, NTT, Intergence and F5. Personally, I spoke about a deployment that I led a couple of years ago, migrating an Enterprise organisation (40,000 users, over 125+ countries) to a new cloud based security service from ScanSafe (now part of Cisco).
During the presentation I outlined the reasons for picking Security as a Service (SaaS) over a traditional premise based security solution, as well as providing details of the design and implementation. I also highlighted a couple of key technical and compliance "watch outs" when considering moving any service to the public cloud. For full details of my presentation please head over to IDC, where videos and slides from the conference should become available in the next few days.
Finally I would like to thank IDC and everyone who attended the conference and I hope to see everyone again soon at a future event.
Today I attended a Microsoft Conference on Cloud Development in London. The main attraction at the event was that Steve Ballmer gave the introduction keynote and answered questions from the audience.
The agenda for the event was as follows:
Steve Ballmer Introduction Keynote
Windows Phone 7
Windows Azure
Internet Explorer 9
Windows 7
Let's jump straight to the hot topic; Steve Ballmer confirmed that Windows Phone 7 will be launched in the UK, and I quote, "in the next two weeks". He did not provide any specifics on carriers or hardware, however he commented that the reason developers have not been provided test hardware prior to the official launch, was to help drive consumer excitement (see videos below for more details).
Before I provide additional details on Windows Phone 7, I did manage to capture some of Steve's opening keynote on Microsoft's vision of cloud computing. I apologise for the shaky camera work and poor angles, however I was very aware that I was holding up an iPhone only a few meters in front of Microsoft's CEO!
Unfortunately I don't have Steve on camera confirming the Windows Phone 7 launch date, however I do have an interesting video of him discussing Microsoft's mobile vision and how it compares to their main competitors. His comments regarding Google Android are especially interesting.
The next video is Steve answering a question about the Windows Phone 7 launch strategy. I look at this answer as "classic Steve Ballmer", watch the video to see what I mean.
Steve went on to speak about slate devices (as he calls them) and joked that he believes the iPad does not offer a good user experience. He confirmed that Microsoft have no plans at this time to develop a slate specific operating system or to port the Windows Phone 7 OS. Like at previous events, he spoke about hybrid tablets and how he believes these devices running Windows 7 offer a better end user experience. Personally I don't agree with this statement and I'm not convinced he truly believes his own words, I think the real challenge is that Microsoft simply don't currently have a product that can compete in this space. I suspect that over time, with the continued success of the iPad and other slate devices, we will eventually see Microsoft offer a better solution (although I think it will more likely be a custom version of Windows, instead of the Microsoft Courier).
Finally, Steve also spoke briefly about other key Microsoft products. He referenced the success of Windows 7 and stated that "Microsoft were back on track" when it comes to scheduled operating system releases, hinting that Windows 8 may not be too far away. He also talked about Office, SharePoint and Windows Azure as key Microsoft products.
This was the first time I have had the opportunity to listen to Steve Ballmer live and to ask him questions. To my surprise I found him to be an engaging speaker, as well as open to answer any question thrown at him. His presentation style is a little crazy (as shown in the videos) and I don't always agree with his views on the future of technology, however he didn't seem to take himself too seriously, almost playing off the persona that the media have created for him. Therefore, if Steve is ever giving a speech in your area, I would highly recommend that anyone interested in IT (or business) head along to check it out.
Now that covers the Steve Ballmer keynote, let me give some additional details on the other topics covered at the event.
Although all the agenda items were interesting I think the reason most people attended was to better understand development for Windows Phone 7 and how this relates to the cloud. The demonstrator ran through a number of scenarios, from coding through to deployment. I managed to grab a short video of him demonstrating the geo-location features and a weather application that pushes different types of notifications to the device.
I also managed to grab an image of the final hardware requirements for Windows Phone 7 (shown below), and to be honest I don't think anything has changed since MIX10, but it's nice to see confirmation.
An area that was interesting was deployment through the Application MarketPlace. Like Apple, Microsoft are only offering two methods of distributing applications. This is either to a limited number of devices through their development licence (you register your device with the development portal) or through the Application MarketPlace (AppStore). It is the MarketPlace where you should be deploying your applications and of course it gives you the ability to sell them, where Microsoft have promised that the developer will always receive a 70% split of the profit (any country specific charges will be absorbed by the 30%).
Like with Apple, before you can start deploying your applications for Windows Phone 7 you need to sign up to be a developer. This will set you back £67, as shown in the image below.
Finally there were some interesting details on multi-tasking and the Microsoft Push Notification Service (shown in the image below). Again I was surprised by the similarities with the Apple iOS platform. It would appear that Microsoft and Apple are aligned in their vision of how a mobile device should operate, with performance, ease of use and battery life being key components.
The other areas covered, Windows Azure, IE9 and Windows 7 were more developer specific and less unveiling of new features. As a result I will archive this information until I write an article on the individual topics (watch this space). If you can't wait, then I suggest you head over the Microsoft UK Tech Days website for details on how to get hold of the content (and videos).
That brings me to and end of my overview of the Microsoft Cloud Development Conference. Hopefully you found the information useful. I also urge anyone who has the opportunity to head along to a Microsoft UK Tech Days event (as they are free), they are very well ran (lunch included) and offer an opportunity for you to get some inside information and ask any questions you might have. To find out when the next event is I suggest you follow UKTechDays on Twitter.
On Tuesday 5th October, I will be attending the Microsoft Special Event - Future of Cloud Development in London. The main interest of the event is that Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CEO) is set to give the keynote. The following information has been provided to those attending:
"Windows Azure, Windows 7, the soon-to-be-released Windows Phone 7 and IE9, with Steve Ballmer introducing the opening keynote"
There is currently a lot of speculation that Windows Phone 7 will be officially announced sometime in October (making it available for reviews), with the US/UK launch currently rumoured for 8th November. My expectation is that Microsoft will hold a separate event in mid-October to announce Windows Phone 7, however with Ballmer giving the keynote at this event, I hope that we might get a sneak peek.
Either way, the subject looks very interesting and I will blog the output after the event.
UPDATE: For those based in London and interested in cloud development, or if you just want to see Steve Ballmer give the keynote, it looks like (from the MS UK Tech Days Twitter) there are still some seats available.
Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 11:52AM | 
