SOPA has become the pariah term for the Internet in recent weeks. In the US, mass lobbying from internet users made it more undesirable than a fart in a spacesuit, & that is saying something. However, the day after the January 18th protests, MegaUpload was taken down by the FBI, citing fraud, money laundering, racketeering, & its founders arrested in New Zealand, pending extradition to the US to face those charges.
Over a week later, the FBI is seeking to confiscate all MegaUpload data that was held on US based servers, whether legitimate or not, & the owners of legitimate data have little to no indication if or even when they will have their property returned to them.
In Ireland, a statutory instrument is being sought for implementation by the music industry there under threat of legal action against the state following the unsuccessful suit by EMI Ireland against Internet Service Provider, UPC, where the judgement laid down that instructions to block sites, and or force disconnections of offending users could not be achieved due to a gap in legislation.
That 'gap' in legislation was due to be plugged last week, were it not for a steam-train of lobbying by Irish Internet users in the 'Stop SOPA Ireland' campaign, which raised the alarm to industry, & internet users alike. It also prompted the Irish Internet Service Providers Association to issue a strongly worded letter against the proposed statutory instrument. ALTO, who represent a group of telecoms companies, also set forward their view opposing the change in law in its current form.
The issue with the secondary legislation due to be passed was the vagueness of how it could/would be used, leaving interpretation wide open to the judiciary, no clear indication of how costs of such challenges would be met (or by who), along with even going so far as having such vagueness to possibly effect the likes of Google, FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn & others who operate in Ireland, as no clear-cut guarantees could be given to them not coming under threat from it.
All of which led to over 77,000 signatures on a petition against the legislation in its current form, hundreds of thousands of emails to politicians, calls, on street demonstrations & for the first time, having secondary legislation becoming subject to an open debate in parliament chambers.
The intense increase with which such 'seizure' legislation is being sought worldwide completely undermines the viability of Cloud Computing, as the legislation being sought is often extremely on-sided, does not seek to ensure that access to legitimate information is protected while also allowing the wheels of law to engage against infringing data.
Those seeking the legislation (the movie, music & entertainment industries) claim it is needed to protect their business, while caring nothing for the businesses that will be caught in the crossfire, many of whom will be small to medium enterprises, which will not have resources to extricate themselves from the legal salvos on both sides, while their business suffers.
What is worse is the fact that Governments who are trying to stem the bleed of small business failures are doing nothing to recognise this, or recognise the impact on innocent parties. Even the organisations who represent small business seem to turn a blind eye to this, & don't seem to care how they could in fact one morning as a result of some action being taken wake up to find a membership out of business simply because they failed to be informed, step in to seek consultation, & drive for that.
There is a very real threat out there to the Internet & cloud computing. It is not piracy. It is not copyright infringement. It is over-zealous politicians eager to not offend rights-holders who seek legislation that is potentially incredibly damaging to the growth of our now globalised information & knowledge society.
No-one is disputing that copyright infringement is wrong. No-one is disputing that piracy does hurt businesses in some way. However, the ideology of American-esque 'shock-and-awe' to solve this problem is unhelpful, self destructive & damaging, & the Cloud will suffer, as will the industries around it, those who depend on it to try keep businesses afloat so they can move forward.
The destruction of the Cloud at the hands of ill-thought, ill-considered, under-debated & consulted anti-piracy measures that are enacted with iron fists will cost more jobs globally than the issue of piracy itself.
Today in Ireland, as we debate the issue of how such legislation needs to be approached, thought & consulted, a country seen as leaders in the Cloud will find its fate determined by a Minister of State under pressure to save face, save costs from a legal action & keep Ireland out of the spotlight. Unfortunately, his actions to date have ensured there is one on Irish Government buildings today, & the outcome from the chamber debate.
Showing posts with label Big Red Cloud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Red Cloud. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
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.
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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