January 31, 2011
Buying into the cloud
The Register
Andrew Buss shares some precautions when it comes to looking at SaaS deployments.
“In this new world of distributed IT services, unless some structure is put in place around selection and procurement, there will be a strong tendency towards piecemeal adoption and a fragmentation of both systems and management. Recognizing the risk of fragmentation is critical, because many of the problems inherent in IT result directly from disjoints, gaps and redundancy in applications, infrastructure and/or data. So who should take responsibility? In an ideal world, you may think that all decisions would be vetted and approved by IT. The reality will be much more of a compromise. The issue ultimately boils down to the questions that need to be asked about the use of SaaS, and whether IT is qualified to answer them.”
Average company spends $6,300 on cloud computing, will spend 10% more this year
ZD Net
Joe McKendrick writes about a survey conducted by Osterman Research for Electric Cloud that looks at IT spending for the cloud.
“The survey of 100 IT executives, conducted by Osterman Research for Electric Cloud finds that among organizations that have implemented cloud computing, spending on cloud-based infrastructure averaged $6,335, or $23.31 per employee, in 2010. That spend is expected to rise to $6,920, or $26.63 per employee, in 2011. This suggests that the companies with cloud computing tend to be on the smaller side, averaging about 300 employees each. In fact, Osterman reports the median number of employees at the organizations surveyed was 403.”
Memo to VARs: Find and Embrace Line of Business Owners
The VAR Guy
Dan Dufault writes why partners must cultivate and maintain “meaningful relationships” with business owners and IT contacts.
“Channel partners in 2011 must seek out meaningful relationships with business owners and traditional IT contacts. As a channel partner, it’s in the best interest of you and your customers to help IT and business owners work together earlier in the process. What do line-of-business owners know about IT infrastructure? That’s my point. They need to know more-and in many cases, want to understand the business benefits of intelligent infrastructure and why it’s important to their applications and services. In other words, the more business owners know, the more successful you will be in selling to them.”
