Cloud Computing is an important trend for established and start-up businesses because it costs less, is quicker to set-up, is more flexible, and is accessible by mobile workers. Ultimately, it allows business leaders to concentrate on growing their portfolio of products and differentiating in the marketplace rather than worrying about hardware, software licenses, updates, and IT staff to keep servers running.
NIST, the US standards body, defines Cloud Computing as follows:
“Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”
Sharing resources among organizations reduces the overall cost for a business and effectively outsources IT applications, server, and storage functions to a central vendor.
I see the Cloud benefiting three types of businesses in the Philippines:
- Start-up businesses –
The cloud reduces up-front costs (Capital Expenditures) on server hardware and software which helps accelerate return on investment (ROI). It also levels the playing field for our local entrepreneurs wanting to penetrate the global market for web solutions (PCs, mobile phones and iPADs) by allowing access to the same global data centers used by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
- Businesses with no IT –
For the Philippines to better compete in the global economy more local businesses need to start utilizing technology to increase revenue, reduce cost, and bolster productivity. The cloud allows businesses to ease into technology by providing standard business productivity tools like e-mail, customer relationship management, collaboration, accounting, and HR management without having to buy server hardware or invest in infrastructure.
- Businesses with in-house IT –
As businesses with existing IT infrastructures go through periodic hardware and software refresh cycles, the Cloud becomes a cost-reducing option. Instead of having to purchase a one-size fits all perpetual software license and server hardware paid up-front, the firm can choose to pay for only what they use on a monthly basis by going to the Cloud. Though there is a need to invest in better internet connectivity, the business will not need to worry about electricity costs and keeping a Gen-Set always ready for power-hungry data-storage and application servers.