As the title suggests, today is the first post to this blog (as well as a tribute to my favorite Vorlon). We are nearing Summer, yet today in NH it feels like the first day of Fall. What does feel like Summer though, is Cloud Computing, because it is RED-HOT!
Before we start our journey to the Cloud, let me first provide some general context as to why I am so passionate about Cloud Computing. It all started back in the late 90's when I had the unfortunate pleasure of being part of a team that implemented a "world class" ERP system. For the most part we were able to get that beast to do what it needed to do, but at a much higher cost than planned. Additionally the opportunity costs were huge. Prior to the ERP implementation we created an extremely impressive sell-side e-Procurement application. This tool gave us competitive advantage, and helped us win a lot of business. Had we continued to develop the application like we had prior to the ERP, I think that the company would have been worth a lot more than it was eventually sold for. Unfortunately the bloody ERP beast required "an all hands on deck focus" so we could keep the lights on. This was basically the death-nail to our e-Commerce development, and to much of our competitive differentiation and advantage.
This painful experience made me step back and ponder the idea that there must be a better way for organizations to get access to technology. During the following months I really began to dig into this idea. One of the reasons for this was the fact that the ERP vendor had a real joke of a CRM offering. I mean when I think back to how pathetic it really was, it is almost comical. So the option that we started looking at was integrating our ERP with an old school 3rd party CRM. What we discovered was it would have been ungodly expensive, painful to implement, and would have left us with a clunky system and a cranky sales team. So basically this was a no go and we needed to find another solution.
It was at this time that I discovered ASP's, which really were the first generation Software-as-a-Service providers (SaaS). After some diligence however, it appeared that most of the ASP's were just hosting an application remotely, and that all of the complexities and rigidity of traditional software still applied. Thankfully, soon after I discovered a new generation of ASP's that were built on multi-tenant architectures e.g. Salesforce.com, Salesnet, Upshot, etc. To me it seemed that these applications were the future of how a lot of software would be delivered.
After the .dot com bust I found myself needing to find a new job, so I decided to start my own company named Technology-as-a-Utility. We helped organizations implement these new multi-tenant applications. This was also about the time that I was exposed to Mr. Nicholas Carr and his controversial Harvard Business School Paper - IT Doesn't Matter. Mr. Carr does a great job of explaining how technology is migrating to a utility service, much in the way that power became a utility service in the early 1900's. If you have not read his stuff, I highly recommend that you do. Technology-as-a-Utility eventually became AppsOnTap LLC, which in 2006 was acquired by GreenPages Technology Solutions, and was my employer until recently.
The future of this blog is going to focus on how to use the Cloud to innovate in order to create competitive advantage and differentiation. We will also address Cloud education, news, and debate around Cloud Computing.
For the record I am not an English teacher and I don't play one on YouTube, so please be prepared to see grammatical indiscretions. Additionally the opinions in this blog are mine, and should not reflect on anyone other than myself. I am looking forward to this being a two way conversation, so please comment if you have something to say.
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