Cloud Computing – Why enterprises hesitate?

By Ganesh Rajendran

Please visit www.aspiresys.com/cloud-computing.html

As you might be aware, SF is the poster child of SaaS and its Force.com platform is one of the fastest growing PaaS players!  And yes, there are other established players in this segment like Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, Google, Zoho.

Now, I have always been surprised of how only a very small percentage of enterprises leverage the power of cloud computing.  In spite of all the hype, the mainstream adoption of cloud computing by enterprises is moving only at a snail’s pace.  I guess all the noise is made by the early adapters and Cloud Computing is yet to ‘Cross the Chasm’!  And that brings us to the vital question: Why enterprises hesitate?

Having sold Cloud products to global organizations, I do understand their reservations:

•    Security of data – how secure is my data in your server? Who owns the data? Who can access my data? How about interference from your local government laws (Example: USA PATRIOT Act)?
•    Vendor lock in – what if I decide to migrate to another platform after 5 years?  Is it practically feasible?
•    Total cost of ownership (TCO) – a back of the envelope calculation tells me the TCO over the next five years of your cloud computing platform is significantly higher (> 2x) than my current system.  How do you justify it?
•    Expertise in your platforms – where do I source steady supply of experts of your platform?
•    Reliability of the ecosystem – as they say, no chain is stronger than the weakest link!  There are multiple parties involved for each of the components viz., infrastructure, platform, software and hey, I just forgot about the resellers and professional services vendors… who takes ownership for what? (the cloud actually is really fuzzy.. no wonder it is called a cloud!)
•    CTO / IT Head is obsessed over home grown stuff (‘no size fits me!’)
I am sure each of the cloud computing vendors addresses these issues in their own way and is trying to aggressively expand their market share.  But I guess enterprises should really see beyond these hurdles and look at how to leverage the cloud computing platforms creatively.  Refer our whitepaper to understand how CXO’s could leverage Cloud Computing…

About the author

Ganesh Rajendran is currently responsible for experimenting with new Marketing initiatives at Aspire Systems.  He can be reached at ganesh.rajendran@aspiresys.com