Johannesburg, 29 Jul 2010
The consumer market has taken to cloud computing far faster than the business market. According to research done by Cisco Systems, Global IP Traffic Forecast and Methodology; Mobility segment, and published in a report by Deloitte Consulting, the private use of the Internet overtook business use in 2008 and has been accelerating ahead ever since.
Similarly, research by Morgan Stanley, Internet Mobile Report December 2009 and also published in the Deloitte report, shows that during 2008 the number of mobile users overtook the number of desktop users of the Internet.
Adrian Moorgas, technology director at Deloitte, says cloud computing is not a new concept, but its time has arrived for adaptation to the business environment.
“The idea of the 'cloud' is not to have dedicated hardware and software, but communicate via Internet and pull in all the services as and when you need them and pay only for the period of use.
“A lot of CIOs have been watching this space and are now ready to take the plunge. One reservation has been the issue of security, but it is demonstrable that cloud computing is now if anything more secure than having one's own dedicated infrastructure,” says Moorgas.
Another statistic is that the use of social networking sites has now overshot e-mails as the major use of the Internet, and most people are already using the cloud in their personal capacities.
“But the corporate can't, because it has a dedicated infrastructure that is designed to not be easily accessed. Private users, familiar with the flexibility of the cloud through sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Gmail, Yahoo and Amazon as part of their daily lives, are demanding the same flexibility at work,” explains Moorgas.
Speaking at a University of Pretoria Gordon Institute of Business Science 'Building Business with ICT' Conference, Microsoft ISV developer adviser Ahmed Salijee updated delegates on what Microsoft was doing in research and development (R&D) to bring cloud computing to the business environment.
He explained that a rigid, antiquated way of thinking just won't cut it in today's world. People in all fields of business need locational flexibility, the ability to literally access a cloud where they need it and when they need it.
The work environment has become highly flexible, with people increasingly working from their homes, their cars, clients' offices or their employers' offices.
This flexibility was currently not being matched by corporate systems. However, with product research taking place at Microsoft, Salijee said it would soon be feasible for someone to be working and making real-time changes to company documents in collaboration with other workers, all the while moving seamlessly from one mobile device to another sequentially from the home to the car, and from the car to a work site.
This has come about through the pervasiveness of devices, as well as of social networks. Long gone is the era when you could do e-mails only from your desktop. “That evolved into being able to do it elsewhere via a laptop. Then Microsoft made e-mail accessible on the Internet and you could access your e-mails from anywhere so long as you had access to a computer.”
According to Deloitte research, more people today access and send e-mails from mobile devices than from their desktop, sifting through their e-mails wherever they are, and immediately actioning the bulk, leaving only the more involved ones for later attention, explains Moorgas.
However, the challenge is to now extend the cloud from e-mailing to actual business processes. Salijee explained: “The cloud will extend your business processes from being entirely an internal system to being in the public domain. This means that offsite you can still access any of your company data and keep your business partners updated on any changes in real-time.”
This means you can access an Excel spreadsheet, have other people access the same file in real-time and agree on changes then and there. Of course, the same can be done with merchandise orders or legal documents.
It is in this space that Microsoft is spending the bulk of its R&D, says Salijee. “A vital attribute of this space is cellphone access, and this is where Microsoft is researching heavily,” he explains.
Another vital feature of any business system has to be scalability. A business innovator can never really know if his business idea is going to attract 10 000 users or one million, and has to accommodate both. Some traditional industries are highly cyclical, with huge spikes once a month or even once a year. The massive infrastructure of a cloud accommodates this.
Some of the future applications of cloud technology lie in entertainment and gaming, but in many other areas too. Salijee says one such use, the technology for which already exists, is for, say, a building contractor to have a built-in computer that monitors by sensors all the equipment lying in his bakkie and compares these to the equipment the contractor needs for the day's work, instantly informing him what he's missing.
“This starts generating real efficiency and time-saving,” said Salojee.
Another is a GPS-device for pedestrians, informing them of interesting tourist information en route, or even tells you where there's a free table at an adjacent restaurant. Another device informs the businessman what he needs to have and know for his next meeting.
“This is where Microsoft is investing in R&D right now,” explains Salijee.
Moorgas adds: “Eventually, your personal photos, music and applications will all sit on the cloud, enabling you to access them from anywhere, even without your own laptop.”
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