When SD Times invited me to contribute a Guest View column, I found it a great opportunity to share my reasons for believing that cloud platforms represent a once-in-a-career-span opportunity to do things in a genuinely better way than what has come before.
As I conclude in that column, now available on line (as linked above):
• Developers [on cloud platforms] can demand diverse tool sets and environments that suit the diversity of the problems to be solved, without the mediocritizing mass of a world full of Wintel boxes forcing everyone into the same development workshop.
• Developers [who take advantage of cloud APIs and Web-based app delivery] can stay on the cutting edge of creating new capabilities, instead of devoting the majority of their efforts to maintenance of their installed base in a worldwide spilled ants’ nest of slightly different on-site installations.• Developers [on a multi-tenant, metadata-based platform such as Force.com] can add value by constantly improving their offerings, instead of reining in their enthusiasm so as to avoid burdening their customers with the nuisance of testing and deploying frequent upgrades. Cloud-based platforms can make value-adding upgrades transparent, inexpensive and low-risk.In the cloud, you can use the tools that do the most for you.
You can put your effort into doing what makes you special.
You can make it better, all the time, and have your customers love you for it.I know where I want to do my work from now on, and I hope to see you there.
The build-up to those conclusions takes more space than suits the format of this blog, but please take a look — and please look for me at Dreamforce, in the Platform State of the Union session and elsewhere at the event. I'd like to know what you're doing, and how we can help.