Last month we posted a blog which advised businesses that are interested in moving to the Cloud to not build technology before securing a security team capable of managing it. This time, we pose a different question-what’s the likelihood of the Cloud becoming a mainstay in your business? And if your company does implement Cloud Computing solutions, to what extent should you do so?
It’s one thing to adopt aspects of the technology, applications and software gadgetry offered through the Cloud but quite another to use it to overhaul an entire business structure.
On the one hand, there is the capability to use the Cloud to maintain the status quo and simply adopt the business data within the cloud for the sole purpose of cutting costs. There is nothing wrong with this of course- the chance to remove the hassle of running an IT department on a fraction of the cost is a worthwhile factor to consider on its own merits.
But the Cloud is capable of much more- and taking a half-hearted approach to implementing it into a business will prove an Achilles heel further down the line.
An important distinction was drawn up this week by CNET guest blogger, James Urquhart: “There is a huge difference between ‘moving to’ the cloud and ‘building for’ the cloud. Are you prepared to invest enough in both?”
Urquhart’s question follows the announcement that Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie, will be retiring from the company in the not-so-distant future. Ozzie’s five year tenure with the computer giants has overseen a technological overhaul in a wide number of areas- Wi-Fi, 3G/4G Networks and downscaled hardware systems to name but a few.
More pertinently, Ozzie has been one of the main visionaries at Microsoft to see the potential and the need for accelerating the capacity and functions of the Cloud. Ozzie’s desire for driving the potential of the Cloud could be said to have exceeded the capabilities of the IT wizards within his own company- pushing the boundaries of combining continuous services alongside connected devices.
Ozzie said: “We’ve seen business processes and entire organizations transformed by the zero-friction nature of the internet; the walls between producer and consumer having now vanished. Substantial business ecosystems have collapsed as many classic aggregation & distribution mechanisms no longer make sense.”
Cost efficiency remains one of the key factors to attract businesses to the Cloud- but there’s little point trying to save a few bucks if your business simply cannot deal with the ‘live’ nature of the Cloud and the way applications can be used and run.
Taking the more radical step to adopt a TotalCloud has the potential to not only save your business money, but also to embrace the latest cutting technology and steal a march on rival companies. The Cloud places emphasis on what technology does, rather than what technology is. It removes the dependency on internal servers and offers tailor-made packages which will suit businesses on a personal level.
As Ozzie summarises: “Cloud Computing will become pervasive for developers and IT – a shift that’ll catalyze the transformation of infrastructure, systems & business processes across all major organizations worldwide. And all these new services will work hand-in-hand with an unimaginably fascinating world of devices-to-come.
“Today’s PC’s, phones & pads are just the very beginning; we’ll see decades to come of incredible innovation from which will emerge all sorts of ‘connected companions’ that we’ll wear, we’ll carry, we’ll use on our desks & walls and the environment all around us.”
