Of course I’m biased… Bryan Doerr is my boss1 and a man that I greatly respect personally. But even considering my bias, I have to say that this is a great quote from his recent article at GigaOm, Cloud Computing: A System of Control:
…cloud computing isn’t cheap computing; it is the delivery of more control to enterprises so they can deliver IT services more affordably and efficiently.
This is the “dirty” truth: infrastructure costs money, and service providers don’t have any magic dust to make that fact obsolete. What providers do have is increased “buying power” and synergy due to large-scale multi-tenant operations. As well, an enterprise-class cloud provider has a focus on IT and the tools needed to operate as best-of-breed.
These are issues that businesses have historically invested in, just to build a platform to support their critical apps. But with the majority of apps running on common and well-established platforms this is “undifferentiated heavy lifting”2. By investing in enterprise-class cloud services instead of in-house platforms many enterprise IT shops can become more nimble, more focused on the issues and apps that drive their business, and ultimately lead their company to further competitive advantage.
1 – Nota Bene: This post is my own, is not sponsored, and has not been reviewed by anybody. My opinions, postings, and all other materials are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer (Savvis, Inc.) or of any other entity.
2 – Attributed to Werner Vogels (http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/), also see http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1466443.1466447 and http://blip.tv/file/471349
