Published: July 24 2009, 03:51 PM
by Stephen Elliot

Jonathan Zittrain's Op-Ed "Lost in the Cloud" (New York Times, July 19, 2009) is absolute and on-target in relation to the legal, compliance, and security concerns of consumers and enterprises that adopt a cloud service.  In fact, CA's conversations with both end-user customers and cloud service providers validate these challenges.  They are proving difficult to solve, but require innovative answers to drive further revenue streams and accelerate adoption. 

The cloud providers that solve these challenges fastest will have a competitive advantage as they will be able to provide the highest levels of service availability, performance, and security.  Better yet, those providers that differentiate beyond price by offering innovative, best-in-class, tiered pricing models based on the level of service a customer requires will be most successful. 

To accomplish this, cloud providers must invest in scalable solutions that align their technology infrastructure and data centers to the availability, performance, and security of their services.  This approach will provide a customer-first perspective and enable providers to "bake-in" processes that reduce waste and deliver differentiation and value for customers.

Real innovation that directly correlates the underlying cloud delivery infrastructure to the value that it delivers to customers - Lean IT - is similar to the transition of the car industry from manual to automated manufacturing processes. They key is building quality into the process.  

Cloud providers have a unique opportunity to enable quality and differentiation through their delivery mechanisms (i.e., software and infrastructure).  Those that seize the opportunity will win and be rewarded with revenue growth and higher market capitalizations.     

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