For instance,
for something like a CRM system, where a Corp employee walks into the office in the morning
and uses that tool for much of the day, it makes sense to license it per year on a per user basis. On the other hand, you
have the HR function on to which people log in only a couple of times during the course of a year.
It would be totally wrong to license
that system for the entire year and so you license it on a per login basis. Like a pay as you
go motel.....that is what we call the cloud utility model. That's the advantage of the Cloud. Vendors are able to be easy
and winning (for the client, NOT them) in terms of services.
The Cloud is the way that people live now. It's a way of life.
Think about Facebook. 650 million people today keep their photo albums in the Cloud. These are the things that
people used to keep in a spare area in their bedroom or garage.
Over 167,890 companies in the world use our Cloud. Some of them are
little start-ups, others are some of the largest organizations in the world. Dell, for instance has deployed our collaboration
tool across 340,000 employees in the period. You can do all of this without any contact with technology (hardware) at the
user's end.
That to me is the meaning of Cloud computing, that the technology being used at the other end is invisible and irrelevant
as far as the customer's concerned.
The Cloud is not about technology, it is the abstraction of technology for delivering pure
services. The Cloud has finally led to the civilization of services because, in the case of Cloud computing, what you pay
for is what you get.
The reliability of Cloud services is so much greater that, on those rare occasions when it's not perfect, it is considered
a big deal. I think that it's great that IT has finally become something that just works. Keeping it up for another month
is no longer an accomplishment for a CIO. Because that is normal. Now the accomplishment is
how to make it more strategic, more operational.
I encounter all the time the skeptical people that doubt the cloud, and I believe
that the main moment of "I get it now" comes when, instead of mentally comparing the Cloud to some theoretical idea,
the CIO or other corporate person compares the Cloud to what he actually has in place.
In some cases,
the running cost is so high that you can't believe the subscription fee of the Cloud. For some CIOs,
when it comes to security, it is not about the money. If I can't satisfy a customer on the security front, then being cheaper
is irrelevant.
That is what is important for a CIO to understand. If you can make a list of things
for your cloud vendor that cannot, must not leave your premises, I can show you how an inexpensive, local flat file can serve
the purpose. Security is nothing that is unachievable in the Cloud. Any good system integration partner has already done it
and we are bullish about security in the Cloud.
Cloud computing is way past the hype cycle. We have over a 100,000 companies
using it across the world. When it comes to India, I can tell you that the growth rate in India is five times the global average.
Especially the USA.
