Cloud brokers & consultants like to talk alot about 'demistifying the cloud'. There's alot of whitepapers, case studies & cloud blogs on 'what is the cloud'. Marketing people almost soil themselves in delight at the prospects of how much money they can make from some of the cloud sales campaigns they design, complete with resplendent back slapping over well-earned cocktails on a Friday evening after work.
The I.T. industry is getting drunk & high of its own spin & the slap-happy tags of 'As A Service' onto things. But recently, I do believe this merriment has gotten to the stage of 'wasted'. That point of drunkeness where even the smallest task is nigh on impossible. I'm talking about the recent love affair with 'Bring Your Own Data' being slapped on as a marketing tag. Which usually comes now with a side order of 'all you can eat data'. Now sure, 'all you can eat data' is nothing new. Anyone who's worked in telecoms has had this phrase bandied about in meetings, internal memos etc..
But, this was never a phrase much seen in marketing. It would usually appear under 'unlimited data' with an asterisk pointing to small print telling you fair usage limits applied. The actual phrase 'all you can eat data' in the cloud is being used, & being used as its considered 'disruptive' & to make it stand out from the traditional straight-edged I.T./telecoms marketing speak of 'unlimited data'.
Okay, so disruptive marketing in the current I.T. services market is nothing new. But slapping 'Bring Your Own Data' on as a marketing piece frankly just shows both how desperately stupid marketing people are about the cloud, & also how incredibly badly those in the Cloud space have been about educating their customers, & also why the cloud space is so small right now. And this really shows in our nearest trading partner, the UK.
A new survey reveals that the current cloud computing services market for UK SMBs is worth £660m. According to the region-by-region reports done by the British Government that were published in October 2010, the total number of small to medium businesses in the UK is somewhere close to the order of 4.7 million. If you were to just take a pure average on that, the survey shows SME/SMB spend on cloud in the UK is currently valued at approx. £150 per year per small company. That's barely even the cost of a few Google premium mail accounts.
Stupidity such as 'Bring Your Own Data' is not marketing people being smart, or driving business into Cloud companies. In fact, the entire prospect of what the cloud offers, whether it is PAAS/SAAS/IAAS was always based on 'Bring Your Own Data'. It is in fact a fundamental of it. Calling it BYOD is stating the bloody obvious, & fooling no-one.
For example, in an IAAS scenario, you're asking people to bring their own data to your cloud facilities, otherwise they'd be bringing their own hardware & data & it would be classed as colocation. In the scenario of SAAS services, of course they're bringing their own data - whether they are a start-up, OR an established company. The same even goes for PAAS; you're bringing your own data to plug into a platform to generate systems in the cloud.
The marketeers in the Cloud have become too drunk off their own illusions of success that they can slap 'As A Service' on things, found a new cow to milk that upon inspection, even at possibly the biggest cross section of the potential market for Cloud, even just within the UK as an example they've made a cloud market worth roughly the same as the shared hosting market four years ago (i.e. pre recession/global market meltdown).
Success? I think not. Cloud marketeers need to get their heads out of the clouds, back onto a footing of reality, & actually engage with the prospective customers. The excuse of 'people won't pay' doesn't wash. They will. People look for cheap services because there's nothing to make them see beyond the value of the cheap services. And it's really a message that is crucial right now as the world still recovers; LOOK AFTER YOUR CUSTOMERS.
Slick marketing & corny chat-up lines like 'Bring Your Own Data' are like the prawn cocktail; dated, & no-one's really buying them. Return to basics, & bring your customers along with you, & give them the value they will pay for, & get rid of silly marketeers who are damaging the growth potential of the Cloud. You'll save yourself money too in the process that you can spend properly on your customers.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Clouded Issues gets shortlisted for the 2011 Eircom Spiders 'Big Mouth' category award
Wow, that title is a mouthful - but yes, I am extremely proud to announce that 'Clouded Issues' has been shortlisted for the Big Mouth award at the 2011 Eircom Spiders, & is flying the flag for the Cloud in Ireland at the awards being the only Cloud blog shortlisted. I'd really like to take the time to thank everyone who has been involved in my journey in the cloud who has in effect made the nomination possible, & the people who went out of their way to have me nominated in the first place. I am grateful beyond any words I could ever possibly express for that kind of support.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Episode 13: Where all for one leaves you on your own.
Consolidation in the Irish datacentre & hosting industry is something that those in it have spoken & written about over the last number of years. In the last number of years in the Irish market, we've seen the likes of Novarra bought by DigiWeb, Register365 bought by Namesco, Hosting365 by SunGard, Aventure by DediServe, & recently, one of the biggest buyouts of DEG by Telecity Redbus.
As is natural in times like this, the merging/buyout of companies competiting by each other is a natural course of evolution in the market. Less competition tends to make alot of people nervous, especially in trying financial times. But then there's others who view these buy-outs as important for securing services held by customers by them not waking up one morning to find their service provider is closed, in administration & their business as a result is in limbo. In the end, in either circumstance, the customer actually loses.
Yes, you read that right. The customer loses. Forget the fact competition evaporates into a consolidated & captive market, the real loss is diversity of solution & redundancy. In Ireland, the managed services industry has been extremely poor at promoting redundancy in solutions. It was common when customers suggested to one of their providers they were seeking an additional back-up, or co-existing solution in another provider's centre to provide some level of redundancy that a provider would put the customer wish first, & a sense of betrayal felt.
For a long time in the Irish market, the customer was not the focus of the business, & that was obvious from the number of failed companies, companies whose customers left in their droves to other providers, & the fact that in the last few years even with so many of the small companies being bought out by bigger companies, the big boys have been totally incapable of dominating the market, & that smaller players have entered & been so successful.
Apart from the frequent criticisms of extremely poor customer care being levelled at some of the big players; horrendous contractual terms, complete inflexibility in the solutions to serve the customer in the way they want & need, horror stories of entire systems not working, & support that just never gives answers, with no real support. Sure, some of these complaints existed before consolidations happened, but afterwards, many have spoken to me of worsening service levels.
But the single biggest complaint many have had is the complete inability due to the sheer myriad of cloud solution platforms used by different service providers meaning people cannot obtain true redundancy. Performance of high-read software systems on many of the virtualisation platforms used has proven hugely problematic for many who have 'been around the houses' in the cloud in Ireland. Moving away from a cloud provider leaving contractual disputes aside proves the most problematic when trying to extract your data to move, or diversify with another provider due to vendor platform lock-in.
Cloud right now in Ireland should be a total no brainer. Traditional services shouldn't stand a chance on the cost argument, or the resilience argument. Cloud providers should be 100% customer focused. The customer is absolutely king right now, but they're not. Ireland yet again continues to prove that customer service in our country is given absolutely little consideration as a factor, along with the customer coming first.
I remember many years ago going into a store to buy a brand new electric guitar, & sure I wasn't parting with two grand for one, it was around 800 to 900 euros for the one I wanted. The first store I went into, I was going to pay the asking price of the model I wanted, & I asked about a case of some kind for it to be thrown in for free (just a simple soft case - they maybe retail for 20 to 25 euros) since it was a mid-range model. I got told in the store that if I bought a Rolls Royce would I expect a garage to be thrown in too?
And sure, you migt read that & think, you can't expect something for nothing. The four other Irish stores that carried the model I wanted gave me the same run-around. At first I thought to myself, maybe I shouldn't expect a garage to be thrown in. Then I said to myself,I'm sure there's someone out there who will. So after a short online search, I found & rang a store in Glasgow, Scotland who not only had the guitar, but were willing to throw in a hard case for free, & ship it for much less than the guitar on its own in a cardboard box here in Ireland. Just to be clear - this wasn't a scale/purchasing power issue. The store was much smaller than the ones we have here in Ireland.
The day after it was delivered, I got a call asking me if I was happy with everything, & was there anything further they could do for me. All this for a guitar I in the end picked up for 670 euros, hard case included. The end result? I have never bought a single guitar here in Ireland after that. In fact, the company I bought from in Glasgow, I've since bought two other guitars from.
Earlier in the year, I went into a very well known store that has pretty much taken over as a guitar megastore in Dublin for another guitar. I was almost laughed out of the store over a discount on a guitar I know they have a huge markup on. The end result, I bought it in from the same store in the UK at a saving of over 300 euros. Again, I received my call the next day thanking me for another purchase & asking me if everything was okay, & even had some on-the-phone support given to me regarding a set-up issue I had with a feature on it.
Consolidation is fine, as long as the efforts on customer service, customer satisfaction & meeting the needs of the customer get concentrated. In Ireland, it's a lesson we still need to learn. Shop around, demand more & don't accept the same-old same-old. It's hard to earn money as a business today. When you go spend, always remember, a fool & his money are easily parted. You cannot afford to be fooled more than once in the Cloud in these times, so keep your feet on the ground while your head is in the clouds.
As is natural in times like this, the merging/buyout of companies competiting by each other is a natural course of evolution in the market. Less competition tends to make alot of people nervous, especially in trying financial times. But then there's others who view these buy-outs as important for securing services held by customers by them not waking up one morning to find their service provider is closed, in administration & their business as a result is in limbo. In the end, in either circumstance, the customer actually loses.
Yes, you read that right. The customer loses. Forget the fact competition evaporates into a consolidated & captive market, the real loss is diversity of solution & redundancy. In Ireland, the managed services industry has been extremely poor at promoting redundancy in solutions. It was common when customers suggested to one of their providers they were seeking an additional back-up, or co-existing solution in another provider's centre to provide some level of redundancy that a provider would put the customer wish first, & a sense of betrayal felt.
For a long time in the Irish market, the customer was not the focus of the business, & that was obvious from the number of failed companies, companies whose customers left in their droves to other providers, & the fact that in the last few years even with so many of the small companies being bought out by bigger companies, the big boys have been totally incapable of dominating the market, & that smaller players have entered & been so successful.
Apart from the frequent criticisms of extremely poor customer care being levelled at some of the big players; horrendous contractual terms, complete inflexibility in the solutions to serve the customer in the way they want & need, horror stories of entire systems not working, & support that just never gives answers, with no real support. Sure, some of these complaints existed before consolidations happened, but afterwards, many have spoken to me of worsening service levels.
But the single biggest complaint many have had is the complete inability due to the sheer myriad of cloud solution platforms used by different service providers meaning people cannot obtain true redundancy. Performance of high-read software systems on many of the virtualisation platforms used has proven hugely problematic for many who have 'been around the houses' in the cloud in Ireland. Moving away from a cloud provider leaving contractual disputes aside proves the most problematic when trying to extract your data to move, or diversify with another provider due to vendor platform lock-in.
Cloud right now in Ireland should be a total no brainer. Traditional services shouldn't stand a chance on the cost argument, or the resilience argument. Cloud providers should be 100% customer focused. The customer is absolutely king right now, but they're not. Ireland yet again continues to prove that customer service in our country is given absolutely little consideration as a factor, along with the customer coming first.
I remember many years ago going into a store to buy a brand new electric guitar, & sure I wasn't parting with two grand for one, it was around 800 to 900 euros for the one I wanted. The first store I went into, I was going to pay the asking price of the model I wanted, & I asked about a case of some kind for it to be thrown in for free (just a simple soft case - they maybe retail for 20 to 25 euros) since it was a mid-range model. I got told in the store that if I bought a Rolls Royce would I expect a garage to be thrown in too?
And sure, you migt read that & think, you can't expect something for nothing. The four other Irish stores that carried the model I wanted gave me the same run-around. At first I thought to myself, maybe I shouldn't expect a garage to be thrown in. Then I said to myself,I'm sure there's someone out there who will. So after a short online search, I found & rang a store in Glasgow, Scotland who not only had the guitar, but were willing to throw in a hard case for free, & ship it for much less than the guitar on its own in a cardboard box here in Ireland. Just to be clear - this wasn't a scale/purchasing power issue. The store was much smaller than the ones we have here in Ireland.
The day after it was delivered, I got a call asking me if I was happy with everything, & was there anything further they could do for me. All this for a guitar I in the end picked up for 670 euros, hard case included. The end result? I have never bought a single guitar here in Ireland after that. In fact, the company I bought from in Glasgow, I've since bought two other guitars from.
Earlier in the year, I went into a very well known store that has pretty much taken over as a guitar megastore in Dublin for another guitar. I was almost laughed out of the store over a discount on a guitar I know they have a huge markup on. The end result, I bought it in from the same store in the UK at a saving of over 300 euros. Again, I received my call the next day thanking me for another purchase & asking me if everything was okay, & even had some on-the-phone support given to me regarding a set-up issue I had with a feature on it.
Consolidation is fine, as long as the efforts on customer service, customer satisfaction & meeting the needs of the customer get concentrated. In Ireland, it's a lesson we still need to learn. Shop around, demand more & don't accept the same-old same-old. It's hard to earn money as a business today. When you go spend, always remember, a fool & his money are easily parted. You cannot afford to be fooled more than once in the Cloud in these times, so keep your feet on the ground while your head is in the clouds.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Episode 12: Carbon in the Cloud & the taxing questions for Ireland
Ireland has set many of milestones so far with respect to the Cloud. We've our first dedicated cloud computing third level course, our Government has talked about a Cloud Strategy & the importance of Cloud Computing to Ireland, we had Irish businesses bought over by large international companies because of their head start in the Cloud, we've had venture capital companies invest into Cloud computing businesses. Now Ireland's Cloud contributions face something that has been coming for some time, carbon taxes tangibly harming its growth potential.
Ireland however, will not be alone. It's biggest & nearest trading partner also seems set to introduce a carbon tax in its budget later this year. While Ireland has already had an carbon tax in place since our Novermber 2010 budget, it looks set to increase under pressure from our EU/IMF deal, which has already been outlined in a Department of Finance published paper.
In 2007, it was estimated that the I.T. industry as a whole contributed about 2% of the carbon emissions in the world according to a Gartner report. That put it on par with the Aviation industry, which is constantly under-fire from the Green movement on its eco-record. Gartner said the solution was fewer servers, better management of resource consumption, increased virtualisation, & better capacity planning.
In 2007, when Cloud was slowly taking off here in Ireland, that sounded great. It made for compelling sales patter. It made for a great eco-friendly story to sell the cloud with, when the idea of carbon taxes was being introduced. It was a great time to sell the concept of the 'Green Cloud'.
The Green Cloud has been a concept that has existed as long as the idea of Cloud has. Greenpeace however in 2010 showed an example of the real problems that Cloud Computing faces in terms of its environmental impact. It also highlighted that if Cloud Computing is now going to be the driver of the I.T. industry, it must also influence how the energy that is to power it is sourced. Michael Dell in an interview with Forbes Magazine said that "I.T. is the engine of an efficient economy, it can also drive a greener one."
As the demand for Cloud Computing increases, multiple cloud providers have opened for business in Ireland in the last twelve months. Wirtualisation companies have taken off, & gathered in the market. With these will come an increased demand for data centre space. This increasing data centre space requirement will see an increase requirement for the provision of power for the infrastructure, as well as cooling systems, power supply fail safes such as generators (usually diesel) & battery systems. All of these are an eco-warrior's bane. Again, the Greenpeace report looked at the greenhouse gasses development from increase data centre creation, & it wasn't a pretty picture being painted.
It also showed that companies in the U.S. like Google led the way when it came to energy sourced from renewable sources, but Yahoo! was the clear stand-out with nearly one third of its energy used coming from renewable sources.
But how does this affect Ireland? These companies (Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Google, IBM, HP, Intel etc), have invested significantly in the country, provided thousands upon thousands of jobs, & Ireland still is heavily dependent on 'Brown Power' (oil/coal/fossil fuels etc). We still have issues in making better use of freely available resources to us to exploit so we can shift our dependency away from fossil fuels, thereby reducing our energy imports, which would in turn allow us to reverse the role, & become a significant energy exporter.
Each day, almost twenty times our energy needs is washed against our shores & still Ireland procrastinates in the area of renewable energy. Yes, we have a number of wind energy projects. We've one of the highest growth rates for this in the world, but no-where near what could be achieved. This comes down to horrendous planning laws, & poorer administration of our planning system in general. In some instances, wind farms don't get built by their developers unless there is a confirmation of guaranteed connection to the national grid, & the entire development project remains contingent on the fact there is absolutely no guarantee of connection to the grid, which seems foolish.
With Cloud Computing increasing in Ireland as we move forward in being a hub for these services to Europe & the world, our greenhouse gasses & carbon emissions will increase. These increases will become subject to these increased carbon taxes.Costs of these services will increase, hamper their ability to be competitive while other nations have greener power sources, & benefit in the market along with lower unit costs of service delivery. This may leave Ireland missing its place on the Cloud gravy train.
If we are to pursue our national agenda & interests in Cloud Computing, Ireland as a whole must make our energy strategy towards shifting to more renewable energy sources in Ireland an integral component of that framework. Commercially, it would be ideal to have a paradigm shift towards more of the 'free-air-cooling' datacentres like Microsoft's own here in Ireland, or others adopting FaceBook's own recently made-public datacentre & servers model.
The issue of datacentre green credentials & its service platforms 'being green' to grow with this rapidly expanding market is really a small part of an even larger global Cloud issue that Ireland will have to confront head on with its notoriously expensive costs to do business. Lower costs for Cloud services for suppliers & end users is a must to be competitive in what is a global service arena given the nature of the Cloud. The green side of it however is not an issue for tomorrow. It's an issue that should have been resolved earlier this morning. We're now in the afternoon without a comprehensive plan or answers, or idea of a solution with the clock still ticking.
Ireland however, will not be alone. It's biggest & nearest trading partner also seems set to introduce a carbon tax in its budget later this year. While Ireland has already had an carbon tax in place since our Novermber 2010 budget, it looks set to increase under pressure from our EU/IMF deal, which has already been outlined in a Department of Finance published paper.
In 2007, it was estimated that the I.T. industry as a whole contributed about 2% of the carbon emissions in the world according to a Gartner report. That put it on par with the Aviation industry, which is constantly under-fire from the Green movement on its eco-record. Gartner said the solution was fewer servers, better management of resource consumption, increased virtualisation, & better capacity planning.
In 2007, when Cloud was slowly taking off here in Ireland, that sounded great. It made for compelling sales patter. It made for a great eco-friendly story to sell the cloud with, when the idea of carbon taxes was being introduced. It was a great time to sell the concept of the 'Green Cloud'.
The Green Cloud has been a concept that has existed as long as the idea of Cloud has. Greenpeace however in 2010 showed an example of the real problems that Cloud Computing faces in terms of its environmental impact. It also highlighted that if Cloud Computing is now going to be the driver of the I.T. industry, it must also influence how the energy that is to power it is sourced. Michael Dell in an interview with Forbes Magazine said that "I.T. is the engine of an efficient economy, it can also drive a greener one."
As the demand for Cloud Computing increases, multiple cloud providers have opened for business in Ireland in the last twelve months. Wirtualisation companies have taken off, & gathered in the market. With these will come an increased demand for data centre space. This increasing data centre space requirement will see an increase requirement for the provision of power for the infrastructure, as well as cooling systems, power supply fail safes such as generators (usually diesel) & battery systems. All of these are an eco-warrior's bane. Again, the Greenpeace report looked at the greenhouse gasses development from increase data centre creation, & it wasn't a pretty picture being painted.
It also showed that companies in the U.S. like Google led the way when it came to energy sourced from renewable sources, but Yahoo! was the clear stand-out with nearly one third of its energy used coming from renewable sources.
But how does this affect Ireland? These companies (Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Google, IBM, HP, Intel etc), have invested significantly in the country, provided thousands upon thousands of jobs, & Ireland still is heavily dependent on 'Brown Power' (oil/coal/fossil fuels etc). We still have issues in making better use of freely available resources to us to exploit so we can shift our dependency away from fossil fuels, thereby reducing our energy imports, which would in turn allow us to reverse the role, & become a significant energy exporter.
Each day, almost twenty times our energy needs is washed against our shores & still Ireland procrastinates in the area of renewable energy. Yes, we have a number of wind energy projects. We've one of the highest growth rates for this in the world, but no-where near what could be achieved. This comes down to horrendous planning laws, & poorer administration of our planning system in general. In some instances, wind farms don't get built by their developers unless there is a confirmation of guaranteed connection to the national grid, & the entire development project remains contingent on the fact there is absolutely no guarantee of connection to the grid, which seems foolish.
With Cloud Computing increasing in Ireland as we move forward in being a hub for these services to Europe & the world, our greenhouse gasses & carbon emissions will increase. These increases will become subject to these increased carbon taxes.Costs of these services will increase, hamper their ability to be competitive while other nations have greener power sources, & benefit in the market along with lower unit costs of service delivery. This may leave Ireland missing its place on the Cloud gravy train.
If we are to pursue our national agenda & interests in Cloud Computing, Ireland as a whole must make our energy strategy towards shifting to more renewable energy sources in Ireland an integral component of that framework. Commercially, it would be ideal to have a paradigm shift towards more of the 'free-air-cooling' datacentres like Microsoft's own here in Ireland, or others adopting FaceBook's own recently made-public datacentre & servers model.
The issue of datacentre green credentials & its service platforms 'being green' to grow with this rapidly expanding market is really a small part of an even larger global Cloud issue that Ireland will have to confront head on with its notoriously expensive costs to do business. Lower costs for Cloud services for suppliers & end users is a must to be competitive in what is a global service arena given the nature of the Cloud. The green side of it however is not an issue for tomorrow. It's an issue that should have been resolved earlier this morning. We're now in the afternoon without a comprehensive plan or answers, or idea of a solution with the clock still ticking.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Episode 11: No, the answer is not 'Cloud'.
In the last week I've had some really interesting conversations about Cloud Computing with some acquaintences of mine. While a good portion focussed on the technical aspects such as the 'true' public cloud, what is perceived as public cloud, & the reality of public cloud actually really being private clouds, there was an aspect of the conversation that kept coming back up; market perception, marketing & of course, those all important sales numbers.
When I think of my own experience in selling cloud solutions to various people whether they were guys starting up a web-based business or cloud-services business, or media companies, or even large multinational businesses who were brave enough to jump into the Cloud, alot of the time the USP was the fact it was 'Cloud' & all that goes with that; scalability, utility resourcing/billing, resiliency etc etc.. That was all fine & good when it was solutions that were going head to head against traditional infrastructure-based solutions.
But, right now we're right at the cusp with a Cloud revolution already underway. The stories of 'I went Cloud, & my business went stratospheric also' while few & far between, do exist. But, we're now at the stage where 'Cloud' is no longer really acceptable as a USP. Nor is the ideal of 'Something-As-A-Service'. Something provided as a 'Cloud' must be a solution that gives a better quality of life as an end result.
A good example of how quality of life is almost of absolute paramount importance is 'Office365'. In Ireland, Microsoft are pushing this like crazy with radio advertisements etc., of how you too can have your office in the Cloud (I realise this is something I covered in a blog in June, but I'll not labour on this point too much). Microsoft Office is the most widely used piece of Officeware right across the Globe whether it's home users, business users or students. In short, it's been a stalwart product for the Redmondians. It does exactly what you need at every level of user from basic to power user alike.
Now, the argument for Office365 is compelling; no longer worry about keeping your office software up-to-date, access your office software & documents anywhere & so on. They tell you front & centre with the marketing it's office in the cloud. Now that's all very well, but how does the quality of life of moving from say a desktop office license to Office365 work for a basic, low end user of Office? The quality of life is practically non-existent if they move to Office365 from a desktop license of Office.
In trying to be clever, Redmond totally missed the point of why Google Docs is successful, & that the Googleplexians have absolutely nothing to fear, & why they are more likely to convert people from desktop versions of Microsoft Office to Google Docs. Microsoft made their product ridiculously difficult to use, totally unintuitive, & giving users as a result a total disimprovement in their quality of life. The pricing model is difficult to get to grips with & small businesses are going to be 'living on a prayer' when it comes to support (online forum support will not make Bob from SmallBusiness Ltd 'feel the love').
It just looks more like Balmer signed off on a project for the sake of it being a Microsoft contribution to the growing Cloud market in a desperate attempt to try keep up with more agile, inspired & user savvy solution providers out there. In essence, cloud for clouds-sake. If big guys like Microsoft are getting this so blatently wrong, then the odds are very rich that smaller companies with an eye on some of the change off the lower end of that big USD$150bn market valuation too are heading for a rude awakening.
I think the example of Microsoft Office365 as 'businesses embracing the cloud' is a really poor example. The numbers of businesses placing their e-mail with Google's G-mail, or people using SalesForce, or the business adoption rates for Apple's iPad & ultimately their use of iTunes' Cloud services are far more telling, but they're not 'sexy stories' that sell magazines, or business news section, or Cloud monthly periodicles online or in paperform.
The truth here really is Cloud in its integration & deployment should be almost anonymous or go un-noticed. That is the absolute true point to & of cloud computing; scaleable, easy deployment without any impact on the end user or them noticing. I mean, yes there are the self-agrandising press-releases of 'Hey, we went cloud, we're awesome & now our customers are awesome too!'. That's par for the course, & shouldn't be mistaken for an indicator for success, or an indication for the existence of a Cloud solution making people's lives better.
For some people Cloud is part of a solution, or not even a solution at all, as the problem with Cloud is that at a certain point in your scaling, the cost becomes absolutely prohibitive, & the technological ability to scale becomes a joint issue of technological & fiscal prohibition. Cloud adoption must be about more than a solution for now to a business, it must be about how it will serve the business now, next week, next month, next year & even in the next five years.
Moving platforms is expensive, costly, is fraught with many things that can hurt your business. If you're trying to shave costs right now, ask yourself what are the costs to get off the platform you're moving to, & what are the lock-ins to your growth using it. Saving cents that ultimately costs you dollars or euros later is not good economy. Do not be bullied into going cloud because the 'sales guy says so'. Sometimes the sales guy just wants to 'A.B.C.' (Always Be Closing), & knows the longer term revenue from you on their platform is more important to him than to your business. Solutions must be the square peg for the square hole, not a sphere that happens to also fit that hole.
When I think of my own experience in selling cloud solutions to various people whether they were guys starting up a web-based business or cloud-services business, or media companies, or even large multinational businesses who were brave enough to jump into the Cloud, alot of the time the USP was the fact it was 'Cloud' & all that goes with that; scalability, utility resourcing/billing, resiliency etc etc.. That was all fine & good when it was solutions that were going head to head against traditional infrastructure-based solutions.
But, right now we're right at the cusp with a Cloud revolution already underway. The stories of 'I went Cloud, & my business went stratospheric also' while few & far between, do exist. But, we're now at the stage where 'Cloud' is no longer really acceptable as a USP. Nor is the ideal of 'Something-As-A-Service'. Something provided as a 'Cloud' must be a solution that gives a better quality of life as an end result.
A good example of how quality of life is almost of absolute paramount importance is 'Office365'. In Ireland, Microsoft are pushing this like crazy with radio advertisements etc., of how you too can have your office in the Cloud (I realise this is something I covered in a blog in June, but I'll not labour on this point too much). Microsoft Office is the most widely used piece of Officeware right across the Globe whether it's home users, business users or students. In short, it's been a stalwart product for the Redmondians. It does exactly what you need at every level of user from basic to power user alike.
Now, the argument for Office365 is compelling; no longer worry about keeping your office software up-to-date, access your office software & documents anywhere & so on. They tell you front & centre with the marketing it's office in the cloud. Now that's all very well, but how does the quality of life of moving from say a desktop office license to Office365 work for a basic, low end user of Office? The quality of life is practically non-existent if they move to Office365 from a desktop license of Office.
In trying to be clever, Redmond totally missed the point of why Google Docs is successful, & that the Googleplexians have absolutely nothing to fear, & why they are more likely to convert people from desktop versions of Microsoft Office to Google Docs. Microsoft made their product ridiculously difficult to use, totally unintuitive, & giving users as a result a total disimprovement in their quality of life. The pricing model is difficult to get to grips with & small businesses are going to be 'living on a prayer' when it comes to support (online forum support will not make Bob from SmallBusiness Ltd 'feel the love').
It just looks more like Balmer signed off on a project for the sake of it being a Microsoft contribution to the growing Cloud market in a desperate attempt to try keep up with more agile, inspired & user savvy solution providers out there. In essence, cloud for clouds-sake. If big guys like Microsoft are getting this so blatently wrong, then the odds are very rich that smaller companies with an eye on some of the change off the lower end of that big USD$150bn market valuation too are heading for a rude awakening.
I think the example of Microsoft Office365 as 'businesses embracing the cloud' is a really poor example. The numbers of businesses placing their e-mail with Google's G-mail, or people using SalesForce, or the business adoption rates for Apple's iPad & ultimately their use of iTunes' Cloud services are far more telling, but they're not 'sexy stories' that sell magazines, or business news section, or Cloud monthly periodicles online or in paperform.
The truth here really is Cloud in its integration & deployment should be almost anonymous or go un-noticed. That is the absolute true point to & of cloud computing; scaleable, easy deployment without any impact on the end user or them noticing. I mean, yes there are the self-agrandising press-releases of 'Hey, we went cloud, we're awesome & now our customers are awesome too!'. That's par for the course, & shouldn't be mistaken for an indicator for success, or an indication for the existence of a Cloud solution making people's lives better.
For some people Cloud is part of a solution, or not even a solution at all, as the problem with Cloud is that at a certain point in your scaling, the cost becomes absolutely prohibitive, & the technological ability to scale becomes a joint issue of technological & fiscal prohibition. Cloud adoption must be about more than a solution for now to a business, it must be about how it will serve the business now, next week, next month, next year & even in the next five years.
Moving platforms is expensive, costly, is fraught with many things that can hurt your business. If you're trying to shave costs right now, ask yourself what are the costs to get off the platform you're moving to, & what are the lock-ins to your growth using it. Saving cents that ultimately costs you dollars or euros later is not good economy. Do not be bullied into going cloud because the 'sales guy says so'. Sometimes the sales guy just wants to 'A.B.C.' (Always Be Closing), & knows the longer term revenue from you on their platform is more important to him than to your business. Solutions must be the square peg for the square hole, not a sphere that happens to also fit that hole.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Episode 10: Band On The Run?
People think Cloud is big business now. We're not even at the projected years yet like 2014 where some have estimated it will be worth as much as USD$150bn. There is a growing perception out there amongst executives in business that 'Cloud' is nothing more than a really nice way of saying 'outsourcing' & question its value based off that, which is really the wrong way to view it. But leaving that aside, the other side of the table are the Cloud service providers.
So far in the Cloudiverse, we've:
Desktop As A Service, or DAAS.
That's right, 'DAAS'. In the late 90's there was a running joke amongst I.T. workers about TLA's (Three Letter Acronymns) & even some went as far as XTLA's (Extended Three Letter Acronymns, which was another humourous way of saying four letter acronymns). In my early days as a support engineer we would try find as many funny TLA's or XTLA's as we could for things during mind-numbing tasks as a way of lightening the mood. A collegue of mine one day introduced me to the term 'PEBKAC error' (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair). Even to this day it brings a wry smile to my face.
But it does over a decade later have me asking, are we getting to the stage again where in order to 'sound' convincing we're confusing the end user with loads of fancy abbreviated terminology? It is bad enough that currently there are so many people out there who from a lay person's stand-point can see how some of these 'Cloud services' can help their businesses. Whether that's to save money, or divesting themselves of capital investment, or just making access to certain systems more global or location neutral. There is a growing problem where despite the fact Cloud companies are sprouting up at the rate Dot Com businsses used to, the market is not being brought along for the ride with it.
There is a sales technique called 'the band wagon effect' where in a bid to try & have your lead buy in to what you're trying to sell them you tell them that their competitor is using your product/service & already benefitting, so they should to. It is a technique done in the hope of assuading fears about how something may be relevant & useful to your business/vertical, while also inserting another fear; the competition having an edge over you as a business.
I get the feeling in amongst this explosion of cloud that people are really trying to be extreme with the 'first to market' ethos & creating as many new 'As A Service' models as possible in a bid to hitch their own wagons to the Cloud band wagon. While no-one can ever deny the fact it's easier than ever to establish a solutions based business to leverage off the Internet, & tag your solution as a 'Cloud' service, there's a temptation for the I.T. industry to 'pig out' on what alot must feel is an 'all you can eat buffet' in the Cloud.
They say unless you learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it. The last time there was a feeding frenzy like this it was called the 'Dot Com Bubble', & that burst. Hard. It also took alot of investors with it & alot of VC companies took a real kicking, especially over companies like 'Boo.com'. Yes, you shouold make hay while the sun shines, but considering the global econmy is still recovering, & here in Ireland we are really struggling, the last thing we need is another over-inflated bubble bursting, which may send any recovery or early signs of it straight into a grave.
As someone whose been involved in the Cloud for some time now, it has been very good to me in terms of employment, work, & opportunity. Not to mention the education it has given as well as enthusiasm again for the I.T. service industry. While we all as Cloud warriors, defenders, enthusiasts, developers, founders, evangelists, champions, consultants etc. want to share this with the world, make some bucks too (because this is what it is ultimately about), we must ensure that as chiefs in our tribes bring the tribes along with us, otherwise we're going to be standing there all on our own looking at a very expensive totem pole that everyone else stopped caring about, & sees no relevance in, with a very hefty tab awaiting us, wondering why people 'don't understand' or 'don't get it'.
So far in the Cloudiverse, we've:
- SAAS - Software As A Service
- PAAS - Platform As A Service
- IAAS - Infrastructure As A Service
- CAAS - Cloud As A Service (granted this is my own term - but still!)
Desktop As A Service, or DAAS.
That's right, 'DAAS'. In the late 90's there was a running joke amongst I.T. workers about TLA's (Three Letter Acronymns) & even some went as far as XTLA's (Extended Three Letter Acronymns, which was another humourous way of saying four letter acronymns). In my early days as a support engineer we would try find as many funny TLA's or XTLA's as we could for things during mind-numbing tasks as a way of lightening the mood. A collegue of mine one day introduced me to the term 'PEBKAC error' (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair). Even to this day it brings a wry smile to my face.
But it does over a decade later have me asking, are we getting to the stage again where in order to 'sound' convincing we're confusing the end user with loads of fancy abbreviated terminology? It is bad enough that currently there are so many people out there who from a lay person's stand-point can see how some of these 'Cloud services' can help their businesses. Whether that's to save money, or divesting themselves of capital investment, or just making access to certain systems more global or location neutral. There is a growing problem where despite the fact Cloud companies are sprouting up at the rate Dot Com businsses used to, the market is not being brought along for the ride with it.
There is a sales technique called 'the band wagon effect' where in a bid to try & have your lead buy in to what you're trying to sell them you tell them that their competitor is using your product/service & already benefitting, so they should to. It is a technique done in the hope of assuading fears about how something may be relevant & useful to your business/vertical, while also inserting another fear; the competition having an edge over you as a business.
I get the feeling in amongst this explosion of cloud that people are really trying to be extreme with the 'first to market' ethos & creating as many new 'As A Service' models as possible in a bid to hitch their own wagons to the Cloud band wagon. While no-one can ever deny the fact it's easier than ever to establish a solutions based business to leverage off the Internet, & tag your solution as a 'Cloud' service, there's a temptation for the I.T. industry to 'pig out' on what alot must feel is an 'all you can eat buffet' in the Cloud.
They say unless you learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it. The last time there was a feeding frenzy like this it was called the 'Dot Com Bubble', & that burst. Hard. It also took alot of investors with it & alot of VC companies took a real kicking, especially over companies like 'Boo.com'. Yes, you shouold make hay while the sun shines, but considering the global econmy is still recovering, & here in Ireland we are really struggling, the last thing we need is another over-inflated bubble bursting, which may send any recovery or early signs of it straight into a grave.
As someone whose been involved in the Cloud for some time now, it has been very good to me in terms of employment, work, & opportunity. Not to mention the education it has given as well as enthusiasm again for the I.T. service industry. While we all as Cloud warriors, defenders, enthusiasts, developers, founders, evangelists, champions, consultants etc. want to share this with the world, make some bucks too (because this is what it is ultimately about), we must ensure that as chiefs in our tribes bring the tribes along with us, otherwise we're going to be standing there all on our own looking at a very expensive totem pole that everyone else stopped caring about, & sees no relevance in, with a very hefty tab awaiting us, wondering why people 'don't understand' or 'don't get it'.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Episode 9: It's a bird, It's a plane, no it's my office .... in the sky?
Last week I was at a presentation given by Paul McEvoy from Baker Security (better known as Go Oodles) where it was discussed how the Cloud for business can best be started with by moving the easier officeware into the Cloud. With Go Oodles being Google's premier partner here in Ireland, that for them means helping to get you into Google's GMail system, perhaps even Google Docs, & in the future, for start-up businesses, or even established ones. They will soo be offering Google's Chromebooks, whcih I understand can be leased on a monthly basis.
For a long time, I have been a proponent of businesses keeping I.T. costs low by using alot of Cloud based systems, or internally deploying desktops using older machines with some flavour of Ubuntu, even REALLY old machines usign Kubuntu where the employee in question would only ever be using web-based systems, or simple desktop work such as spreadsheets, or creating the usual familiar documents in the usual suspect formats. I've never been fond of the idea of businesses who are trying to keep costs low splashing out money on brand new desktop hardware, expensive operating systems, or officeware licenses.
I'm even less enthused about the idea of still relying heavily on local storage. So it's pretty clear where my love for the Cloud comes from. In saying that, when Microsoft first broached the idea about creating Office documents online or the user desktop being online, personally - I was unconvinced truth being told. Despite the fact I was involved in Cloud computing at the time, I thought it was another one of those Microsoft-jumping-on-the-bandwagon ideas, much like Zune, which was eaten alive by Apple's iPod in the market.
Even in 2006, Bill Gates knew the value of working online, making sure that he could even work on the move with his tablet PC. In Ireland, we've had a few really attrocious winter seasons due to poor infrastructure management & planning from our authorities, & alot of working days were lost. I myself living amongst the countryside fell victim, but working days were not lost. I was able to work remotely. Even my office phones I had easy access to thanks to some smart VOIP systems.
Even that aside, alot of people around the world don;t work in a central office, & rely on centrally hosted systems to work, or cloud-based systems to work so geographic location doesn't matter. Google themselves said during the ash-cloud travel restrictions in Europe in 2010, they were able to have employees stuck in countries just turn up in Google offices, & log into their own systems from terminals there.
Right now we're in the middle of a recession, & it is said that times like these are the best to start a business as costs are really low. So right now, the idea of a completely cloud-based office makes absolute sense. It's also why companies like Dublin Mail Drop are doing so well in the current climate offering virtual offices to people. Companies can even open up 'international' offices remotely using companies like them. Have a central post-box address, localised contact number, & have sales guys or service guys on the road with laptops/tablets/Chromebooks with 3G access to office systems.
This really does champion the best use of the cloud, & really show a great way forward for alot of start-up businesses, & an even better way fo existing businesses looking at their own overheads etc.. Do you REALLY need an office? Do you REALLY need internal systems? Would it be better to have your small company of people work from home, & if a meeting room is required, take advantage of virtual office services, who often offer meeting room use for hourly costs.
Suddenly when you step back, think about that, the costs to be saved & the absolute control, maintenance, the complete freedom & agility this idea gives to a start-up company who is trying to make it past the first year, so it can hopefully also pass year two & onto the hopefully profitable year three.
If you are a business who right now is wondering how to take advantage of the cloud & are wonering where you can even start, e-mail is your best place to start. After that, looking at things like your accounts packages, or payroll using things like Sage or Big Red Book. Even your CRM software, making use of things like SugarCRM or SalesForce will also move you away from expensive desktop licensing, the need for nightly back-ups of hard-disks for data from these, or versioning issues.
I know of one company who once a week still go around & manually back up a different version of the CRM from each person's dekstop machine & then go through a manual integration process, for a redistribution on a Monday morning. That's just insane when you think about it.
Another example in mind is a business who have a single server in their office for all their data, which has persistent problems & there are online alternatives for their requirements, but won't use them as they & I quote here "won't in any way, shape, or form let our data outside the front door." The server in question also has a single hard drive inside. A manual tape back-up is done every one or two weeks on it. If this company is unable to access that server for an hour, all hell breaks loose & they can & have lost customers due to systems outages.
Strip away alot of the hype, the B.S., the marketing & look at the logic to the Cloud. If businesses in start-up mode are in heavy risk during the first three years, why would you not leverage off systems designed to mitigate risks in multiple areas to give your baby a better chance of survival? If your business is currently at risk, why would you not take all & any precautions to minimise against failure?
The difference right now between staying alive & dying as a business while the economy rights itself, & our politicians tinker with very fine balances is absolutely on a knife edge. Maximising the opportunity while reducing the risks where possible is absolutely crucial. Using things like Google's GMail, or GoogleDocs, or Office365, or Azure, SalesForce, SugarCRM online, SageOne Online, or Big Red Cloud may just save your business not only money, but heartache.
The Cloud allows you to focus on the core of your business, & if you have I.T. staff have them helping to grow & secure your business instead of being fire-stokers. You don't pay I.T. staff to keep the wheels greased, you pay them to help drive your business through better enablement, & management OF that enablement. They are not janitors, & even those who manage I.T. sections of non-I.T. businesses need to understand that & become more pro-active in showing their value to their companies so the full benefits can in turn be passed on to the end customer, who will value any 'wins' they can get amidst their own troubles.
For a long time, I have been a proponent of businesses keeping I.T. costs low by using alot of Cloud based systems, or internally deploying desktops using older machines with some flavour of Ubuntu, even REALLY old machines usign Kubuntu where the employee in question would only ever be using web-based systems, or simple desktop work such as spreadsheets, or creating the usual familiar documents in the usual suspect formats. I've never been fond of the idea of businesses who are trying to keep costs low splashing out money on brand new desktop hardware, expensive operating systems, or officeware licenses.
I'm even less enthused about the idea of still relying heavily on local storage. So it's pretty clear where my love for the Cloud comes from. In saying that, when Microsoft first broached the idea about creating Office documents online or the user desktop being online, personally - I was unconvinced truth being told. Despite the fact I was involved in Cloud computing at the time, I thought it was another one of those Microsoft-jumping-on-the-bandwagon ideas, much like Zune, which was eaten alive by Apple's iPod in the market.
Even in 2006, Bill Gates knew the value of working online, making sure that he could even work on the move with his tablet PC. In Ireland, we've had a few really attrocious winter seasons due to poor infrastructure management & planning from our authorities, & alot of working days were lost. I myself living amongst the countryside fell victim, but working days were not lost. I was able to work remotely. Even my office phones I had easy access to thanks to some smart VOIP systems.
Even that aside, alot of people around the world don;t work in a central office, & rely on centrally hosted systems to work, or cloud-based systems to work so geographic location doesn't matter. Google themselves said during the ash-cloud travel restrictions in Europe in 2010, they were able to have employees stuck in countries just turn up in Google offices, & log into their own systems from terminals there.
Right now we're in the middle of a recession, & it is said that times like these are the best to start a business as costs are really low. So right now, the idea of a completely cloud-based office makes absolute sense. It's also why companies like Dublin Mail Drop are doing so well in the current climate offering virtual offices to people. Companies can even open up 'international' offices remotely using companies like them. Have a central post-box address, localised contact number, & have sales guys or service guys on the road with laptops/tablets/Chromebooks with 3G access to office systems.
This really does champion the best use of the cloud, & really show a great way forward for alot of start-up businesses, & an even better way fo existing businesses looking at their own overheads etc.. Do you REALLY need an office? Do you REALLY need internal systems? Would it be better to have your small company of people work from home, & if a meeting room is required, take advantage of virtual office services, who often offer meeting room use for hourly costs.
Suddenly when you step back, think about that, the costs to be saved & the absolute control, maintenance, the complete freedom & agility this idea gives to a start-up company who is trying to make it past the first year, so it can hopefully also pass year two & onto the hopefully profitable year three.
If you are a business who right now is wondering how to take advantage of the cloud & are wonering where you can even start, e-mail is your best place to start. After that, looking at things like your accounts packages, or payroll using things like Sage or Big Red Book. Even your CRM software, making use of things like SugarCRM or SalesForce will also move you away from expensive desktop licensing, the need for nightly back-ups of hard-disks for data from these, or versioning issues.
I know of one company who once a week still go around & manually back up a different version of the CRM from each person's dekstop machine & then go through a manual integration process, for a redistribution on a Monday morning. That's just insane when you think about it.
Another example in mind is a business who have a single server in their office for all their data, which has persistent problems & there are online alternatives for their requirements, but won't use them as they & I quote here "won't in any way, shape, or form let our data outside the front door." The server in question also has a single hard drive inside. A manual tape back-up is done every one or two weeks on it. If this company is unable to access that server for an hour, all hell breaks loose & they can & have lost customers due to systems outages.
Strip away alot of the hype, the B.S., the marketing & look at the logic to the Cloud. If businesses in start-up mode are in heavy risk during the first three years, why would you not leverage off systems designed to mitigate risks in multiple areas to give your baby a better chance of survival? If your business is currently at risk, why would you not take all & any precautions to minimise against failure?
The difference right now between staying alive & dying as a business while the economy rights itself, & our politicians tinker with very fine balances is absolutely on a knife edge. Maximising the opportunity while reducing the risks where possible is absolutely crucial. Using things like Google's GMail, or GoogleDocs, or Office365, or Azure, SalesForce, SugarCRM online, SageOne Online, or Big Red Cloud may just save your business not only money, but heartache.
The Cloud allows you to focus on the core of your business, & if you have I.T. staff have them helping to grow & secure your business instead of being fire-stokers. You don't pay I.T. staff to keep the wheels greased, you pay them to help drive your business through better enablement, & management OF that enablement. They are not janitors, & even those who manage I.T. sections of non-I.T. businesses need to understand that & become more pro-active in showing their value to their companies so the full benefits can in turn be passed on to the end customer, who will value any 'wins' they can get amidst their own troubles.
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