Yes, this is another post about Google App Engine, which you either don’t care about, or have already read about. Actually, it’s more about how such things are reported on the web, using two prominent blogs/publications as examples.
My favorite account of AppEngine so far is the account of building and launching an app provided by Henry at TechCrunch. I sometimes weary of reading account of web services obviously written by people who haven’t actually used the service. To provide the one-sentence summary: Henry was impressed with the speed with which he and Mark McGranaghan could get the app going.
Turning now to ReadWriteWeb and to Marshall Kirkpatrick, I was struck by the concern about lock-in.
It’s very, very important that there be no barriers to leaving App Engine and that the service retains customers based on price and superior service. Anything else, any lock-in, will drive a stake through the heart of innovation.
The concern is striking, not in itself, but in contrast with the comparative lack of such concern about Amazon’s competing offerings when they were launched. In fact, I don’t know anyone who expressed concern about getting locked in to Amazon Web Services besides me.
That’s one of the most interesting aspects of Google App Engine: the competition with Amazon Web Services. It promises to drive the cost and time of building and deploying web applications yet further down.
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