To The Cloud or not to the Cloud that is The Question
In my industry (sales within IT Consulting), I have come to run up against many challenges in the sales cycle. I’m constantly faced with objections ranging from cost, to competitors, to doing nothing but one objection that is coming up more and more is “going to the cloud”. While the concept of a “cloud” based IT architecture is appealing for many companies, it’s important to remember that going to the public “cloud” is not for everyone and not for every situation. One instance of this is if your business handles sensitive information over email and if your company is looking for a fully integrated Unified Communication solution. While the security and reliability is there, for example Microsoft’s BPOS, its important to remember that if your clients are emailing you sensitive information, they may require that you own the data and it’s kept in house. Additionally, if your company is looking to integrate an UC solution, including Unified Messaging, then a public “cloud” solution may not support all functionality that your company is after. While I’m not looking to completely discredit the public “cloud”, in fact, I think it is a great solution for the right company type, when one approaches this idea, it is important to look at all aspects of the “cloud”. Many times, the best solution is a combination of public “cloud and private “cloud” (virtual environment held on premise).
-Arash Zadeh, PEI
