 >>>>
Craig Burton posted a note about iFolder and I shot back, but clearly we are talking about Apples and Oranges.
Craig elaborates on what why iFolder is an Apple here:
""iFolder automatically redirects and synchronizes file I/O at the binary level. It does delta-based updates in chunks as small a 4k bytes without any user intervention. The system isn't centralized at all, the data gets replicated on every node that is part of the cloud--automatically.""
Although his example looked like an Orange:
""After installing the iFolder client on each machine, I simply copy the files I want to be located on every machine to a folder named, “iFolder” located in the “My Documents” folder. The iFolder system automatically synchronizes replicas of my iFolder files to every machine that is part of the cloud. This way, my work automatically follows me wherever I go, and I don’t have to do anything to make it happen. This is the magic of redirection.
I open a document on the computer in my office. Later in the week, I turn on my laptop while on the road in my hotel room. After a few seconds of synchronization when I first log onto the net, there is the file I was working on. It’s right on my laptop, just like it is at home on the office machine. I make a few changes and save the file.""
Clearly, the Orange example looks like workflow. The Apple explanation looks like a system that could find wide applicability as an infrastructure solution (I ran into a system like this two years ago but the firm that developed it didn't get funding. It was a natural compliment to the massive bidirectional database replication we were doing as part of the Gomez Performance Network). As a file replication system, this looks great and I bet there are lots of fantastic applications of the technology.
However, as far as workflow goes, the problem most people run into isn't a lack of elegant file replication, rather, it is that there are too many files being distributed with too little process attached. What Radio does is turn documents into data that can be intelligently distributed to the right people and recombined in ways that provide people a quantum improvement in contextual understanding (Groove comes close to this but fails due to a lack of a CMS). Files, when they are used, are placed within a process flow that helps people utilize their full potential. Over time, I can see a world where always connected workers do most of their work online within a tool that doesn't put their content into a silo as confining as an office document.
This is the ultimate promise of the Internet, and perhaps a way to finally get beyond the hype of seemingly elegant technological improvements to real knowledge worker productivity improvements. BTW: Thanks for the blogroll! When I get mine going, you will get a slot.
5:47:14 PM 
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