The Tornado in the Horizon: Cloud in Enterprise
Customers have already started embracing the managed hosting Cloud through various services such as Gmail, YouTube and Facebook. But it’s a totally different story for businesses. Small and medium-scale businesses are attracted to the cost-efficiency of the web-based solution but the Cloud still just hovered on the horizon of mainstream IT businesses. A lot of them still perceive it as unfeasible in general. But cloud based services are set to quickly tip for the enterprise.
The impending shift is like the disruptive transformation of IT back in the 90s when it was driven by such companies as Microsoft, Lotus, Oracle and Sun. Geoffrey Moore, author of “Inside the Tornado” and ‘Crossing the Chasm’ has analyzed the transition and described how enterprise technology was adopted. Innovators were followed by the early adopters, visionaries and then their IT departments. When the enterprise technology hits the IT team, everyone is officially part of the tornado.
And it seems that the dust is beginning to swirl again. Within the next two years, enterprise IT is expected to follow the footsteps of current adopters and visionaries. They will finally embrace the cloud and move content, applications and processes to the Web.
What are the catalysts for this upcoming perfect storm? They are a combination of general and cultural shifts, maturing platforms and a compelling economic environment. This will make cloud-based solutions the choice platform for a number of future non-core technology purchases.
