Can the Cloud help?

IT of course is synonymous with innovation and the ability to improve workforce efficiency and business processes. However, many companies are still making do with technologies which have made them inflexible. Such IT systems, which were creaking even during the good times just a couple of years ago, are not going to fuel the innovation needed to thrive and survive in times of economic uncertainty.

Cloud computing is the answer many businesses are turning to. It offers the opportunity to use applications and services – from customer relationship management (CRM) to storage – which are managed by specialist service providers and accessed via the Internet.

The bonuses are plenty. There are very small upfront costs and no need to invest in expensive infrastructure to run applications on-premise. Likewise, management, updates and patching are carried out centrally by the service providers, reducing the strain on IT departments.

Consumer applications push enterprise IT

Cloud applications and services have been extremely popular in the consumer space for years. Yahoo! webmail, Google's Gmail and even eBay are good examples of such offerings. They are highly usable services where no component needs to be installed or managed on the user’s desktop or server. An Internet connection is all that is needed and they are ready to go with rich functionality running on infrastructure beyond the means of all but the wealthiest companies.

And for several years that power, ease of use and accessibility, along with the popularity and ubiquity of the web have been forcing a revolution in enterprise IT as well. Increasing amounts of businesses are looking to bring in more flexible solutions, which map against a bigger mobile workforce with greater demands on what technology should deliver. They want IT that works, but doesn’t need to be managed daily, and can deliver on shortened time scales while not breaking the bank before the project delivers any value. Cloud computing can enable businesses to react to change in days, not the months or years it used to take to deploy on-premise.

Flexibility first

Working in the cloud will enable enterprises to be flexible in today's market.

Organizations can also now use a cloud based platform to create bespoke software and applications. Via a Platform-as-a-Service they can build and deploy their own solutions for immediate use across the enterprise without the need to deploy complex infrastructure. This too creates the ability to react to change in an agile fashion.

Because data is stored centrally and accessed remotely by all users, collaboration is far more simply achieved. There are no departments working on different releases of the same software, no duplication and no data which resides only on certain machines in silos which act as blocks on effective working.

Through such lean computing, business can trim the fat which they may have tolerated in good times but can no longer deal with.

No fuss deployment

Cloud computing will also enable companies to get enterprise quality technology up and running with no installation headaches. They will no longer face the management and ongoing support on-premise solutions demand. Today, companies need to concentrate on strengthening their business and streamlining their financial model. This focus should not be distracted by problems caused by the use of aging IT systems.

They can also scale up and down at the press of a button, turning users on or off quickly to react to market conditions and changing times.

Should a company make the leap to cloud computing there will be no paid-for software gathering dust on the shelf and no costly over-licensing or compliance risk of under-licensing. Again this will trim fat and risk from their IT use.

The future

The rise of cloud computing began as businesses looked to innovate their way out of the previous downturn in 2001. The reasons, as above, were because they didn’t want to be saddled with costs and problems which should be peripheral to their core business. They wanted IT that worked seamlessly in the background and freed the company to concentrate on delivering value, not running to stand still.

The author is President & COO, Asia Pacific salesforce.com