Is the Cloud All Grown Up?
Have you ever tried to help a toddler learn to tie his own shoes? You want to help this young child develop self-reliance and confidence, and in the long run you know that dressing himself will be more convenient for you. On the other hand, you have places to be and spending 20 minutes putting on a shoe is incredibly frustrating.
Have you ever tried to help a toddler learn to tie his own shoes? You want to help this young child develop self-reliance and confidence, and in the long run you know that dressing himself will be more convenient for you. On the other hand, you have places to be and spending 20 minutes putting on a shoe is incredibly frustrating.
Technology can feel like a growing child. New technologies have tremendous opportunities to transform the potential for profit, create new capabilities and result in more efficient use of resources. But new technologies can be difficult to integrate with existing systems and the learning curve can be steep.
Getting on board early in the technology lifecycle is the key to building thriving businesses around it. As technologies mature, more providers will offer the service and profit margins shrink due to heavy competition. Eventually, the market self-corrects. Those without established businesses, expertise and reputations are weeded out, and consumers coalesce around major operators.
So the real question is, How mature is the cloud? Is it a wriggling toddler, a competent grade schooler or a jaded teenager? It depends on who you’re looking at.
In the enterprise market, cloud technology has reached maturity. It’s getting late in the game for new players to enter the field and make a significant impact.
But it’s a different story for the SMB market. CompTIA’s 2012 Trends in Cloud Computing study showed that small and medium-size firms have basically caught up to large firms in their understanding of the cloud. They have moved to the cloud for many applications and services, but lag behind in adoption of infrastructure services. But they plan to catch up in the next few years.
Cloud technology is not a toddler anymore. Public, private and hybrid cloud solutions for SMB customers have the potential to generate huge profits. SMBs want and need custom-built, tailored managed services for the cloud, and the channel is in the ideal position to provide those services. Whether you plan to offer disaster-recovery-as-a-service, hosted servers, desktops-as-a-service or the full array of infrastructure services, now is the time to leap into the cloud market, before it becomes oversaturated.
Get ahead of the curve and become an established cloud provider. You’ll be glad that child can tie his own laces!
Richard Reiffer is Vice President of Cloud Services at Zenith Infotech and CEO of Global Cloud Consulting. Monthly guest blogs such as this one are part of Talkin’ Cloud’s annual platinum sponsorship.
Definitely not a toddler
Definitely not a toddler anymore, you’re right. For me, it seems to be transitioning out of the awkward teenager phase too. With more businesses using well-developed SaaS tools more often, it’s a long way from the basic functionalities it used to have in its infancy.