Today’s macroeconomic conditions make analysts rather pessimistic about IT and telecom spending, with a stagnation or a slight decline foreseen for almost every kind of equipment (telecom, desktops, servers, printers…) and a minor increase for services.
In this crisis context analysts keep delivering positive forecasts only for technologies which help companies’ projects linked to IT rationalization, data center consolidation or outsourcing. Cloud computing, virtualization, software-as-a-service, open source software are today’s hype technologies from their point of view.
Suppliers are also surfing on this trend. They have renewed their strategy and communication to attract organizations eager to reduce their capital investments and rationalize their existing costs. All these technologies enable suppliers to promote a “pay-as-you-go model” for companies’ new projects. This model is bundled with a green communication designed for companies widespread concerns about climate change and traffic congestion.
Distributed work is now a reality for large organizations. The business model of cloud computing, virtualization and software-as-a-service drives the need for collaboration and seamless access to any resource of the company. However, it is still difficult to demonstrate at the global scale of an organization. Indeed, some technical solutions have to be found for some applications which are not compatible. Integration and migration costs are often underestimated. Operational and organisational constraints must be removed and service level or security agreements are not fulfilled for large organization.
The business model may rather target SME or limited perimeters of users of large organizations. What can also be observed on the suppliers side is the multiplication of new financing models offered by major actors (Cisco, Avaya, HP, Microsoft…) to companies of any size, relying on the limitation of capital investment and leasing principles. The next coming months will reveal if these models encounter some success among organizations.
Mac-Coy Pham
Cloud Computing and Saas : A brief & simplified explanation
Mac-Coy Pham
Whereas the cloud computing refers to the infrastructure layer, SaaS refers to usages and services. Both concepts are linked and complementary.
Today, businesses have their own infrastructure (Servers, datahouse…) where applications are housed.
In a cloud computing, millions of servers managed by professional companies such as Google, IBM, yahoo, Microsoft …. are interconnected together and deliver services to Users. The cloud becomes the single entry point for any computer providing potentially a full range (in fact unlimited) of applications. Access to services would be done through standard and light applications, such as a Web Browser.
Software as a Service is a model close to what used to be calleds AsP. The classic model consists in purchasing a software, paying licence fees, installing the software on a Server, and eventually, getting a maintenance contract for the server. In the Saas model, the user buys a professional service which fits its requirements without taking care of the software itself.
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written by Stéphanie Meyer and Mac-Coy Pham.
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