Different Clouds on the Horizon

Cloud Computing seems to have struck a chord in a way that ASP, OnDemand, SaaS and all the previous incarnations never have. Every analyst is blogging and tweeting about it, there are a slew of conferences, and a surprising number of books have already been published.

But what is interesting is that it has reached the mainstream press. It is no longer something that IT folks talk about in terms that baffle the rest of society. Now, most business people have heard of "the Cloud," even if they don't understand what it is or the implications of using it. And there are now more than one sort of Cloud - Public Clouds and Private Clouds. In addition, the "Stealth Cloud" should be added to the lexicon. As the name suggests is does its job – quietly, unseen, unnoticed.

Silver Lining?

So business people are embracing the ideas of Cloud Computing. Why? Because they can see immediate value from the applications and services being offered. In a world where immediate gratification is expected, the Cloud delivers. You can hit a website, sign-up for a service and be using it within minutes or hours. The range of services is staggering: from order fulfillment via Amazon, to creating your own branded social network on Ning. Some are free, some freemium (free but you pay for additional features), some paid. And with technology becoming easier to develop, there seems to be no limit to what is being provided in the Cloud, all packaged in a very compelling, fun user experience.

Consumers are Business People too

So when the individual is provided with these elegant services as a consumer, it is inevitable that they bring them to work. Just as they bring their iPhone in preference to the company issued phone – but that is a subject for another day. With services such as online backup, project management, CRM, collaboration, and social networking all available through a browser, is it any surprise business users are signing up and ignoring the staid and boring applications provided by the IT department?

So the issues for CIO's are threefold. One, these services are meeting the business users needs today and, it is quicker for the individual to sign up and pay for these services than to arrange a meeting with the IT department; only to be told that it is a low priority and will be in next year's budget. Two, the user interface is so much more compelling than the current internal applications. And three, the costs of Cloud based applications are often lower than the IT-loaded costs for internal systems.

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