Can you believe the Iphone was introduced in 2007 a mere
5 years ago and now it is so ingrained in our culture that our children appear
as though they were born with advanced degrees in "I" skills. Technology changes rapidly and the producers
name the tune while we, as the consumers, must dance to their song. We are the recipients of an overload of
electronics and choices. Frequently accompanying
those is sheer confusion deciding over which platform or device is best. But this is true; the Internet provides a
platform for us all to communicate, regardless of what we use to access the
Information Highway.
Three points were being made above. First, we are the consumers; how we compute
is driven by what innovations and options are offered to us by the
producers. Second, businesses hoping to
prosper cannot ignore change, but must embrace it. Mobile device sales are surpassing
traditional computer sales. Last, the
Internet is indeed the infrastructure by which we are all connected. It only makes sense in this mobile society
that we find the quickest, most efficient way to access our daily digital
needs. Pursuant to that, the producer’s
philosophy has done a complete 180 in how they see infrastructure. Here we go again. It's like the mainframe revolution all over
again, where things are centrally located and shared.
The thinking is that centralized storage and applications
are most cost-effectively accessed by folks all going to the Internet (a central
point), as opposed to using the Internet to get to their private domains in
their office. When you take that in
conjunction with the speed in which most people can connect to the Internet
along with the universal tools available for accessing the internet, there is a
natural convergence towards placing our computing resources there - at one
central access point. It makes some
sense and there is a strong argument that there is a high ROI for companies
that abandon the idea that they need everything in-house. We can all understand it is cheaper to have
one big server than lots of little ones.
I am not here to make the ROI argument.
I have one of those CPA degrees so my answer is "What do you want
the number to be?" The truth is
that the producers are developing more and more applications built on this
cloud concept and an increasing number of consumers need get access to corporate
and personal information on-the-go. Seems like a win-win to me, but many folks out
there are uncertain if the time is right
to make a leap into cyberspace with what was traditionally locked up in the
computer room.
Clearly the answer is not the same for everyone and each
company should evaluate their workflow, their workforce, and the costs of the
various components. There is a lot of
due diligence to be done in regard to providers and the language of their
contracts, not to mention the security of your data. I and others have offered volumes of
information and experience on the critical questions in considering such a leap...but
the point today is that if you think change is bad, obsolescence is
deadly. Software as a service, and
cloud/mobile computing are here to stay and it behooves an organization to
start including discussions of how to adapt and transition from the pervasive
server/client "wintel" world.
Act now because applications from backup to proprietary products are
being run from external computer centers across the globe, and the Internet has
become the destination, not the highway.
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