In this blog I look beyond the obvious and try to find out why people and companies do what they do - and what it means for the rest of us. 
I love this data, which comes from ESG’s 2012 IT spending intentions survey (we’ve been doing this for years, so we have some excellent tracking data). This survey covers North America, Western Europe, and the Asia Pacific region.
In 2009, people were 3X more likely to cancel an IT project, or cut headcount to contain costs then they were to use cloud services.
By 2011, folks were just as likely to consider implementing a cloud solution to contain costs as they were to kill a project or fire people.
2012 data tells us that we’ve crossed the chasm – people are now MORE likely to use cloud techniques as a cost containment/reduction strategy then they are to shoot a project or get rid of people.
This, my friends, is a tipping point. (How many more book themes will I steal in this blog, I wonder?)
Cost reduction/containment is by far the most important catalyst to a long term, thriving market opportunity. Always. Strategic value (i.e., making money on your decision versus saving money by your decision) is always secondary. Always.
Thus, we can now assume that cloud has moved mainstream – and will only accelerate. As soon as a market accepts you as a valid cost containment/reduction strategy, you are invited backstage, where the deals happen.
So, what’s that mean? Markets become interesting when the status quo is upset. The status quo likes things, well, to stay the same. The same being “you give me money, I spend it. You bitch about it, then you give me more money.” Something that derails that flow tends to upset those on the receiving end.
So as more and more people adopt cloud-based strategies (initially) to cut costs, who among the status quo will be negatively affected? Want to know how to figure it out in your own shop? See which sales guys start coming around way more often than normal. See how many times they call you “Buddy!” lately. Those are the ones at risk. Those are the ones who will react in violent opposition (overt or covert) to your move to the cloud.
Those are the ones who will adapt (quickly) or perish (slowly and painfully).
Game on!
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Hey Steve,
I agree 100%. However, one problem with cloud (specifically IaaS) is the lack of real-time cost visibility by most cloud service providers. Most people we have talked with express two concerns. One is “cloud bill shock” at the end of the month and the other is the tedious task of allocating the cloud cost across users, projects, and departments.
In order to allocate budget and forecast spend, companies need a better handle on their cloud cost visibility, as cost can change dramatically and quickly from users or from spot price changes. Companies should track cloud cost in real-time and associate those costs with line-of-businesses, applications, services, projects and more. We have just developed a SaaS offering that is inexpensive and provides exactly that – uptimeCloud.
uptimeCloud is the simple way to monitor cloud costs by tracking real-time, dynamic pricing of cloud and providing an immediate and accurate cloud cost breakdown, complete with full alerting and reporting. The uptimeCloud dashboard helps remove cloud cost risks/unknowns for SMBs, mid and large enterprises alike and allows IT to split cloud usage by line of business, application, service, IT project, or however they choose.
uptimeCloud is still in beta, but will be launching very soon. Please let us know if you’d like to give it a test drive – http://www.uptimecloud.com
While I detest sales pitches in my blog (unless they are my own, of course), your point is valid enough for me to allow it. And, it actually is interesting – as a side bonus.
[...] IT dollars over the coming year. Recently Steve Duplessie posted an article on his blog entitled Cloud – The Cost Containment Strategy that concludes cloud has finally “crossed the chasm” in IT. According to preliminary [...]
[...] IT dollars over the coming year. Recently Steve Duplessie posted an article on his blog entitled Cloud – The Cost Containment Strategy that concludes cloud has finally “crossed the chasm” in IT. According to preliminary data, [...]
[...] IT dollars over the coming year. Recently Steve Duplessie posted an article on his blog entitled Cloud – The Cost Containment Strategy that concludes cloud has finally “crossed the chasm” in IT. According to preliminary data, [...]
[...] IT dollars over the coming year. Recently Steve Duplessie posted an article on his blog entitled Cloud – The Cost Containment Strategy that concludes cloud has finally “crossed the chasm” in IT. According to preliminary data, [...]
[...] IT dollars over the coming year. Recently Steve Duplessie posted an article on his blog entitled Cloud – The Cost Containment Strategy that concludes cloud has finally “crossed the chasm” in IT. According to preliminary data, [...]
[...] IT dollars over the coming year. Recently Steve Duplessie posted an article on his blog entitled Cloud – The Cost Containment Strategy that concludes cloud has finally “crossed the chasm” in IT. According to preliminary data, [...]
[...] IT dollars over the coming year. Recently Steve Duplessie posted an article on his blog entitled Cloud – The Cost Containment Strategy that concludes cloud has finally “crossed the chasm” in IT. According to preliminary data, [...]
[...] IT dollars over the coming year. Recently Steve Duplessie posted an article on his blog entitled Cloud – The Cost Containment Strategy that concludes cloud has finally “crossed the chasm” in IT. According to preliminary data, [...]