What’s in a Name? That Which We Call the Cloud…

Shakespeare declared, “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” He might be right about the flower, but in the cloud-sphere, I’m not so sure the same principle applies.

Lately, I’ve talked to many of my colleagues who are offering public or private cloud services. The thing that struck me was the variety of ways they are presenting these services to their customers. Some use “cloud” while others refer to “hosted” or “off-site” or “centralized” or “as-a-service” or … the list goes on.

If cloud is such a hot trend, why aren’t we shouting “CLOUD” from the mountaintops?

Is it because people don’t like the cloud? That doesn’t seem to be the case. CompTIA’s Third Annual Trends in Cloud Computing report (July 2012) reported that 85 percent of respondents feel “more” or “significantly more” positive about cloud computing compared to the previous year.

Is it because they don’t understand the cloud? That doesn’t seem to be an issue either, according to the CompTIA report. Compared to the previous year, cloud understanding has risen significantly. Ninety-one percent of IT staff say they are “familiar or very familiar” with cloud computing. We even see high understanding among business staff (79 percent), small firms (78 percent) and even executives (66 percent).

The issue for their customers is risk tolerance and comfort with change, according to my colleagues. People know what the cloud is and what it can do, and they think that’s great. But that doesn’t mean they’re ready to jump into the deep end.

• Many businesses still aren’t sure that the IT industry has worked out all the kinks (remember ASP?).
• The office server or computer works most of the time and your clients know that you can fix it or install new equipment when it dies (you’ve basically done almost too good of a job!).
• At the end of the day, many clients are just not ready to completely turn their IT infrastructure over to a new model.

So MSPs are finding clever ways to promote the technology. They are using terms that are more comfortable to their customers: “This is just like terminal services, but without the hassle,” they say. “I can bring it up for you in 10 minutes and I’m just going to have it at my place, so you don’t need to deal with it. I’ll take care of everything.  Let’s just add the hardware and its support to your monthly charge from us and eliminate all of your worries.”

It’s familiar and convenient to customer, who may not even be aware that they’ve just moved to a cloud model.

For the IT provider, all of this is just the rose by another name, and the bottom line for their recurring revenues smells sweet indeed. But for the customer, the name really does matter. Because for some, the “cloud” seems rotten!

Richard Reiffer is Vice President of Cloud Services at Zenith Infotech and CEO of Global Cloud Consulting. Monthly guest blogs such as this one are part of Talkin’ Cloud’s annual platinum sponsorship.