Cloud Computing, the perfect computing model or a triumph of great marketing?
Perfect timing to a perfect storm
Cloud Computing has moved well beyond the hype and seems to be taking its seat in corporate boardrooms and enterprise IT strategy plans. Fuelled by a recession which led to cutting down of IT spending and a quest to discover more efficient ways of making IT dollars work for the company, the cloud computing phenomenon has struck with perfect timing.
Real benefits
Its benefits are undisputed, low (almost zero) capital investments, anywhere availability, pay-as-you-go plans and easier switchovers, CIOs and CFOs alike are starting to like the sound of it. Yet the Cloud Computing model is not without its drawbacks.
That’s when the marketing comes in
Despite the well documented concerns of security, reliability, platform and data lock-in etc. which have overshadowed the cloud computing model, service providers have ingeniously maneuvered their way through the negativity and have created a marketplace that is more ready to embrace the model and willing to take a few risks in doing so.
While the issues have been addressed to a great extent (although not fully solved) and assurance given to the clients, attention has been diverted to more compelling aspects such as great usability, anywhere access on any device, ability for the users to customise the application themselves and so on.
Chatter-ing up the office
Companies such as Salesforce.com have redefined what enterprise systems should be like. They’ve done this by challenging the conventional wisdom and perceptions which dictate that business software is uninteresting and boring to use. By creating and developing tools such as Chatter (along with a launch event that featured the Blackeyed Peas!), they have brought excitement and energy that was confined to the likes of Facebook and Twitter into enterprise software.
Cloud computing service providers have made the shift not only more attractive but also less painful to deal with. Migration plans, change management strategies and user adoption strategies… all of these come bundled in. So while the concept of cloud computing is a technological marvel, the marketing that has gone in to it absolutely admirable. It ought to go down in the books as a triumph of great marketing.
