Josh Bruno

Google announced their App Engine yesterday. This is huge news for startup web developers, and an amazing move by Google.

Essentially, the service allows developers to write applications on Google’s platform, a platform that allows for extreme scalability and distributed processing power. Think of the storage, bandwidth, and processing required to run Gmail, well now developers have access to this. Also, unless your web application becomes extremely popular, its free!

This is a perfect environment for web startups, who can now avoid server and bandwidth fees ($1,000s a month) while not having to worry about migration if their application becomes the next YouTube. Also, Google’s API will allow for faster development as it covers the issues of user account management and data redundancy.

Google will profit because developers will use Google’s user API and thus be integrated into Google’s system. If XYZ software were to become famous using the Google App platform, ALL users would be required to login using a google account. Although developers could potentially write custom login scripts, Google’s API will speed up development and add security.