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Future Trends
Transforming the way we get business done
loud computing is shaping
up to be the biggest
transformational event in
information technology
and management since
the personal computer was introduced to
corporate businesses in the 1980s. This
is because like the personal computer
revolution, cloud computing has everything
to do with how businesses will utilize these
new capabilities, not how IT will.
Cloud computing has been loosely
defined as the aspirin that will cure
whatever ails you as it has come to
mean just about anything related to the
Internet. While we all can’t entirely agree
on what the cloud is or isn’t, one thing is
clear: At its essence the cloud deliberately
intends to complete the abstraction of
technology infrastructures in the modern
business setting.
Companies don’t care about CPUs,
storage, bandwidth or the facilities and
c
Cloud computing
has been loosely
defined as the
aspirin that will
cure whatever ails
you as it has come
to mean just about
anything related to
the Internet.
automation objectives and nothing more.
Cloud computing ushers in a new
generation of information management
solutions packaged as all encompassing,
pay-as-you-go subscription offerings that
are scalable for businesses of all sizes. All
are delivered via the Internet. Businesses
won’t be required to understand the
nuances of these services any more
than they concern themselves with how
phone calls are completed through the
infrastructure of one or more carrier
service providers today. You dial the
number, it rings on the far end and
someone answers. It’s an abstraction as far
as the customer is concerned.
Once upon a time in the not so distant
past, businesses employed telecom
experts on their staff to ensure that those
services were provisioned affordably and
reliably. Except for a very small number
of companies today, this is no longer
the case. In particular, decision-makers
for small and midsize businesses have
improved information system alternatives
to select that for the most part didn’t exist
as recently as five years ago because of the
advent of the cloud.
The last great single tenant, client server
business application of the 1990s already
has been delivered to the marketplace.
With very few exceptions, every substantial,
sustainable, commercially viable piece of
business software constructed in the days
and years ahead will be engineered to
leverage the attributes of the cloud.
It’s the owner-operators and the
decision-makers for the small and midsize
companies who either have already
redeployed their information technology
systems into the cloud or are presently
planning to do so shortly. As a result, they
will be the winners and the champions for
this movement in computing.
resources required to house those things.
They also don’t care about software
maintenance, patching and upgrades or
database management and tuning. The
truth is they never really did; it was a
prerequisite to reaching their business
Dave Rice is the chief executive officer of
TrueCloud.
