In the third week of July, DStv announced an on-demand video service. This was just the latest development in the evolution of cloud computing, a model that will in time come to be seen as the way computing services are delivered.
Nothing else makes sense, if one is logical. The model of cloud computing is in almost every sense a return to the days of mainframe computing, where the resource was “somewhere out there”.
The problem is that mainframe computing was costly, awkward, proprietary and unresponsive to change. The benefit is that it conferred centralised control and management, and data could be secured and accessed from anywhere.
This is what cloud computing offers, and more.
The 1980s dominance of the BUNCH (Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data and Honeywell) along with IBM meant that customers simply had to choose the operating system and machine of their suppliers' choice.
That has gone. Today, no one really cares where their data is. They want to know it is there, that it is available and fully secure and enables collaboration.
It has taken a long time, but today the cloud is where customers choose to work.
It is also where the channel should be focusing its forward-looking strategy. It is undoubtedly the way of the future, where companies are choosing to go, and the way channel partners should be directing their energies.
Though still in its infancy, the market for cloud computing is growing rapidly. For example, worldwide revenue from public IT cloud services is forecast to reach $55.5 billion in 2014, according to IDC - more than double what it is today. While this is only a fraction of the amount of money spent worldwide on ICT goods and services, it nonetheless represents one of the fastest growing parts of the overall ICT market. Little wonder, then, that cloud computing has emerged as the number one technology priority for 2011 among information technology professionals, according to Gartner.
As soon as next year, nearly one in five businesses will own no IT assets, according to Gartner. Instead, they will rely on services provided by various third parties, including cloud vendors.
Our vision for cloud computing is being developed to provide maximum flexibility for customers and unrivalled opportunity for partners. From a high level, it is shaped by four core beliefs:
1. Adoption will be motivated by cost and agility;
2. The network platform is required to deliver the full promise of the cloud;
3. Multiple approaches are required to accommodate diverse customer objectives; and
4. Innovation will flourish across the entire IT landscape.
No one company can deliver the full promise of cloud computing, and certainly not of a world-class quality.
This is where a partnering, or channel model, comes in. Most cloud providers will build and maintain their own network operation centres (NOCs). As such, they will require significant, up-front capital investments. Their customers will pay for their computing services not with funds from their capital budgets in one lump sum, but instead with money from their operating budgets over time.
Cloud providers are likely to adopt a variety of go-to-market business models. Some, for example, are likely to offer computing resources on an as-needed basis to customers through a multi-tenant, public cloud environment. Others will offer dedicated and secure services via a private cloud to customers who do not want to store their data on servers that contain information from other companies.
Prior to becoming a cloud provider, partners themselves will want to consider the skills of their sales people, their cash flow requirements and the needs of their customers.
Services resellers, in turn, will market cloud services as an agent or reseller of a cloud provider, and aggregate cloud services from multiple sources. These organisations will likely be partners who today resell on-premise equipment and offer complementary, value-added services. In the new world of cloud computing, however, they will sell computing assets as a service or utility, not as a product.
It should be clear, now, that there are no fixed rules for cloud computing, but that partners and their clients should approach it with an open mind predicated on flexibility and value delivery.
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