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Computing is also much more modular than electricity generation. Not only can
applications be provided by different utilities, but even the basic building blocks of
computing data storage, data processing, data transmission can be broken up into different
services supplied from different locations by different companies. Modularity reduces the
likelihood that the new utilities will form service monopolies, and it gives us, as the users of
utility computing, a virtually unlimited array of options. We can, for instance, use one service to
store our data, another to keep our data secure, another to run our data through a microprocessor,
and many others to apply our data to particular chores or tasks. The public computing grid isn t
just a transmission channel, as the electric grid is. It s also a means of assembling, or integrating,
the diverse components of electronic computing into unified and useful services.
Back in the 1990s, Sun Microsystems coined the marketing slogan The Network Is the
Computer. It was catchy but, for most people at the time, meaningless. The network wasn t our
computer; the PC on our desk was our computer. Today, Sun s slogan suddenly makes sense. It
describes what computing has become, or is becoming, for all of us. The network the Internet,
that is has become, literally, our computer. The different components that used to be isolated in
the closed box of the PC the hard drive for storing information, the microchip for processing
information, the applications for manipulating information can now be dispersed throughout
the world, integrated through the Internet, and shared by everyone. The World Wide Web has
truly turned into the World Wide Computer.
Eric Schmidt, who was still employed by Sun back when it came up with its prophetic
slogan, has a different term for the World Wide Computer. He calls it the computer in the
cloud. What he means is that computing, as we experience it today, no longer takes a fixed,
concrete form. It occurs in the Internet s ever-shifting cloud of data, software, and devices.
Our personal computer, not to mention our BlackBerry, our mobile phone, our gaming console,
and any other networked gadget we use, is just another molecule of the cloud, another node in
the vast computing network. Fulfilling Napster s promise, our PCs have merged with all the
other devices on the Internet. That gives each of us using the World Wide Computer enormous
flexibility in tailoring its workings to our particular needs. We can vary the mix of
components those supplied by utilities and those supplied locally according to the task we
want to accomplish at any given moment.
To put it another way, the World Wide Computer, like any other electronic computer, is
programmable. Anyone can write instructions to customize how it works, just as any
programmer can write software to govern what a PC does. From the user s perspective,
programmability is the most important, the most revolutionary, aspect of utility computing. It s
what makes the World Wide Computer a personal computer even more personal, in fact, than
the PC on your desk or in your lap ever was.
To see that programmability in action, you need only look at the controversial online
game Second Life. Created by a company named Linden Lab, Second Life is a
computer-generated, three-dimensional world. It s populated by players digitized alter egos,
which take the form of computer-generated figures, or avatars. Although it has some
similarities with other massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft, Second Life
is a very unusual game. There are no rules, no winners or losers. Through their avatars, players
simply become citizens, or, as they re usually called, residents, of a simulated society. Within
that society, they can do whatever they want whenever they want. They can stroll down
sidewalks, drive down streets, or fly through the air. They can chat with friends or strike up
conversations with strangers. They can buy land and build houses. They can shop for clothes and
other merchandise. They can take classes or go to business conferences. They can dance in
nightclubs and even have sex afterwards.
Second Life is an example of a utility service supplied over the Internet and shared
simultaneously by many people. It s very different from traditional computer games, which need
to be installed separately on each player s hard drive. But Second Life is also itself a
construction of many other utility services. The computer that runs Second Life doesn t exist
in any one place; it s assembled, on the fly, from various data-storage and data-processing
molecules floating around in the global computing cloud. When you join Second Life, you use
your Web browser to download a little software program that s installed on your PC s hard drive.
Although you initiate the download through Second Life s home page, the program is actually
delivered to your computer from storage drives owned and operated by Amazon Web Services.
The Second Life home page, the Amazon drives, and the browser running on your PC act in
unison to carry out the download. You re not conscious of the intricate exchanges of data going
on behind the scenes.
Once installed, the little program stores information about the appearance and the
location of your avatar. The program constantly talks, over the Internet, with the main software
Linden Lab uses to generate its online world. That software runs on hundreds of server
computers that are housed in two data centers, one in San Francisco and one in Dallas, owned
not by Linden Lab but by utility hosting companies. Every server computer contains, in turn,
four virtual computers, each of which controls a 16-acre plot of land in Second Life. All the real
and virtual computers work in tandem to create the vast world that residents experience as they
play the game. In addition, other companies and individuals can write software programs to add
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