Published: August 16 2010, 01:05 PM | 1 Comment(s)
by David Gormley

If there is one thing that we have learned in the last year with the "cloudification" of everything technical, it's that different groups have disparate views on exactly what the cloud is and how valuable it will be.  Over the last couple of months I have talked to a number of people in various industries about their view of cloud computing and how it will be adopted. From these discussions there were a couple of themes that I thought were worth mentioning.

I am going to break down the people that I talked to into two groups: Business-centric and IT-centric. While there was some overlap in the commentary, they each had some unique ways of talking about and approaching the cloud. Let's start with the more typical or predictable opinions.  On the business side there were a set people with a rosy, excited view of the cloud.  This group has the attitude that this is another shift in the technology landscape which will enable the business to be more agile and less dependent on IT and its dictated timelines.  One business unit director told me that his IT group was resisting cloud initiatives just as they had resisted the previous shift to client server technology and the reasoning was the same, the technology is dangerous because it pushes outside the previously defined, well-protected area which they had worked for years to standardize and control. 

On the IT side of this equation I spoke with several people that were eager to point out the discrepancies between how different people defined "the cloud" and they concluded that it was not imminent if people don't even have a clear view of exactly what it is.  This segment of the IT population is very wary of the business group mentioned above, who they feel are overzealous about cloud potential. They are concerned that the business group will create a corporate directive that may force them to change many of the processes that have taken years to put in place.  This would include a lot of change and would require learning new skills.

This commentary reflects some of the more predictable differences between the way many IT and business people view cloud computing. But there are other, unique viewpoints about cloud that I had not heard about until recently.  First on the IT side there was a contingent that asked a lot of questions about cloud computing and how it works, what the new security concerns are and how they could be addressed. Their goal was to formulate something concrete to present to business when the inevitable "we want more in less time and for less money" discussion comes up.  In the words of one person, "the next time they come to me with the usual catch 22 scenario (the popular combination of an aggressive wish list and a reduction in the IT budget), I want to lay out the cloud based approach as one possible option."  They were looking at it as a way to break the strained "we can't do it"or "it will take 6 to 9 months" kind of discussion that has been creating an ever increasing divide between the business and IT management in many organizations. 

There was an interesting angle on the business side as well. A couple of people that I talked to were interested in aggressively implementing some cloud-based concepts, not just for the potential cost savings but to innovate in their industry and be the first to offer new services. These scenarios included companies playing the role of an identity provider or an aggregator of SaaS/cloud based services within their industry.  Companies that are out in front of this concept are finding some creative ways to offer flexible, automated and enhanced services to members of their own supply chain (both upstream and downstream).  They are exploiting "first mover advantage" by embracing some pretty well established technologies and standards in a new way to connect multiple parties and reduce the friction in the traditional business partnership processes.  For example:  

1. Broadridge provides IT and processing solutions for the financial services industry.  They offer a range of applications in a hosted (or SaaS) type arrangement. Broadridge is currently using web access management, federation and identity management tools to enable secure access and proper provisioning to these applications. One positive side affect from creating this efficient, automated system is that both customers and other vendors (that offer related SaaS applications) have asked them to incorporate additional services into their model.  This has become a successful, revenue producing offering which increases Broadridge's value to their customers and improves the stickiness of their overall solution.
2. MEDecision is a leading provider of collaborative healthcare management solutions.  They have created a platform which allows patients, providers and payers to all interact and share the appropriate information.  MEDecision is utilizing a combination of WAM, web services security and federation to facilitate HIPPA compliant interactions between the multiple parties in a healthcare supply chain.

Neither of these companies started out with the objective of being a Managed Service Provider (MSP) but both have used proven technology to solve problems in their respective industries that required secure Internet ("cloud") interactions between various constituents.  These are especially poignant examples because they represent two of the most highly regulated industries.  If this type of solution can work effectively in these environments, they are sure to offer similar opportunities in many other industries.  Cloud technologies are not just for a few select companies to consume elastic technology resources for low priority projects, they can be applied to drive innovative new (revenue producing) solutions.