Google launches Google App Engine

Google has just launched their Google Apps engine platform, which looks to bring cloud computing to Google's growing arsenal of services and applications available to the public.

A direct gauntlet throw-down to Amazon's web services, the launch of the App Engine means that Google won't just host your application for you, they'll actually help you build the entire thing, offering crucial components like free server bandwidth, an application environemnt, BigTable database access, and GFS (Google File System) for data storage.

In a nutshell, the App Engine lets you:

...run your web applications on Google's infrastructure. App Engine applications are easy to build, easy to maintain, and easy to scale as your traffic and data storage needs grow. With App Engine, there are no servers to maintain: You just upload your application, and it's ready to serve your users.

So basically Google have made it even easier to run an entire business online and through there services and applications. A netrepreneur could run almost every facet of their web-business through Google, with some services free, some paid for, but all with the ease and infrastructure we've come to expect from Google. Although I've never used it, according to sources Amazon simply doesn't offer web services as organized as Google's.

Google have now come even closer to effectively ruling most corners of the web. Tom Nixon (of Brighton's Nixon McInnes interactive agency) wrote a great post on his own blog that points out exactly what this means, and I absolutely agree with him when he says:

Google will then have a piece of the action at every point:

• Driving traffic to the site (Google Adwords)
• The hardware and software infrastructure (BigTable and other services)
• Reporting (Google Analytics)
• Maximizing conversions (Google Optimizer)
• Taking money (Google Checkout)
• Monetizing page views (Google AdSense)

Tom has a great point - all Google need to do now is offer pre-built, almost white-paper applications or templates, and anyone with any level of internet knowledge can start up an online business in no time, all under Google's watchful eye. Should 1 out of 100,000 be a stellar idea, Google would have no problem in snapping them up - which is pretty much every netrepreneur's dream anyway.