“We have to sell cloud services,” that phrase used to be the premise some years ago at a well-known technology multinational in which I worked. As mentioned in the previous article, market, magazines, expert consultants and certainly the CEO were invaded by marketing. The fashion by those times was taking customers to “cloud” without knowing why. Even today, I cannot think in other such categorical failure that year.
THE cloud computing BEFORE cloud computing
Fortunately, before anyone made “cloud computing” fashionable, it was somewhat a reality. We all had for example Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail e-mails or even basic webmails of our internet providers that offer 10 or 20 if our internet`s domain was under their management. Yes, I know what you are thinking, that was definitely not cool as talking as “cloud computing,” but it works.
Controversies
Most concerns regarding this focus on security, data privacy, regulation compliance, etc, etc.
I will try to rapidly mention some points:
Legal Issues
Up to a few months ago, Megaupload was a based-cloud service allowing us uploading files and getting access at thema anywhere. There was no need of thinking in internet links, permits or hard drive` space, we uploaded a file and it was available. Finally, we all know the end of the story, FBI closing the site and millions of users unable to have access to their files. Nothing prevents/prohibits that such actions are carried out in other app providers or cloud infrastructure. this legally means that despite using some cloud service, if it is being used for other users for other purposes considered illegal, we will be in danger of losing all data.
Regulations
If the Cloud`s origin is in US, we should ask ourselves, Why do we have to obey non-existent geography rules that increase costs considerably? Probably, the provided services obey US/Europe regulations. If my company is small and local or even regional, it is necessary adding the cost of complying with complex rules that by now are not applied to this geography.
Security
Who audits my cloud provider? Who knows if he is going to comply? Wikileaks showed that nothing is secure, everything is vulnerable even US Embassy classified data.
Common Sense
These are some common sense points that readers can analyzed:
Life expectancy
Cloud Computing provider`s companies will continue within 2, 5 or 10 years?
Costs
By applying common sense, saving`s arguments, are at least fairly debatable. Saving with license costs assuming the
software provider will buy more for other customers, or leverage human resources to operate and monitor, ignores the
fact that such cost must add again the provider`s profit, so in general cost saving is canceled. This means, I get a 30%
saving but I also generate a 30% “profit,” so which is the saving amount?
There is not much saving on HW against virtualization. I have recently published a note in my Twitter of HCL (Indian Technology Multinational) CEO, Vineet Nayar in which he literally mentioned that there is nothing new on Cloud Computing that has not been resolved by virtualization. Directly and grotesquely he said that Cloud Computing was “rubbish.” Hardware on demand`s idea is pretty simple of copying due to advent of virtual machines, so benefit on cost saving is much more limited than what people think
Innovation
Within IT history, I do not know a company which had exponentially grown by doing same things as other companies. The addition to cloud services is a way of “standardizing” with other companies. Innovation and Competitiveness is lost. That`s the reason why differentiating processes should be under our domain and not under a service provided by a third-party.
Interoperability
If we already have systems, migrating to the cloud can be difficult. Systems` interaction or satellite developments upon
own platforms are already a problem though any of them is under our domain. If we have to add an external provider in
which getting port access is a priority, and a protocol depends on other, that even more works on another time band and speaks other language, and ask filling 20 files and assist other 20 customers, then we add more problems to our operations. Not a minor issue, if you consider a flexible and agile company regarding market`s changes.
Then, why Cloud Computing is a Latin American`s reality?
Most of our companies are SMBs. Software, hardware, IT human resources` purchase cost, is too high for companies of
such size, so due to cloud computing we have access to e-mails, office packages, human resources or sales apps.
Software and hardware automatically updates, so we will have a development department that probably cannot achieve all expected improvements but will certainly generate evolutions with better features.
Is Cloud Computing viable for big companies?
Of course. All my big customers are questioned by me, How long have you been using Gmail/Yahoo? Generally, they said since many years. How many times have you lost information on those services? (never, is the common answer.) How many times service was down? (Few times, typical answer). So why do you want an e-mail server in your company? it must be monitor, needs space, cpu, patches, having ups, backups, a reliable internet link, etc, etc. All that summarized in a monthly payment per e-mail user.
Additionally, if my sales process is not original but similar to the rest of companies, and works independently from other systems such as human resources, invoicing, then there is no visible problem of migrating to SalesForce.com, same thing happens with payroll, human capital, etc. Provided that they are a standard, not the heart of business and do not interact much with other systems, then they will be used by the cloud.
Future
This section would be nothing without “Future”: from my point of view, in the future Cloud Computing will not be considered – as Marketing`s premises – “best management” or “cost reduction” but it will be partly powered – as we can see in the video games industry – because it reduces and considerably complicates computer software piracy.
Future of IT 