Page 187 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind
P. 187
Y O UR CL OUD STRATEG Y: WHAT KIND O F COMPANY DO Y O U W ANT?
server time will have a bad effect on the general sense of ex-
perimentation. The resource has to be treated as generously
available to those who have shown that they have a knack for
using it, or who merely show the prospect of having the knack.
It can’t be reserved for a high priesthood, as in the past. Ex-
perimenting with cloud resources is going to be necessary
for the day when cloud computing is commonplace and
your company will need to maintain an environment of con-
stant modeling, experimentation, and trial-and-error test im-
plementations to survive. It will need a staff of computer-
literate, or perhaps just cloud-literate, experimenters to do so.
In the outside world, the cloud revolution will already be
mobilizing millions of end users to do more with the newly
available computer power. The power in their handheld, lap-
top, or desktop machine will be amplified by specific services
in the cloud that they can access and resources that they can
drive. The primary interaction between a business and its
customers will occur in the cloud, and that interaction will be
far richer than today’s shallow exchange over the Web. Yes,
Amazon.com can tell you what other books were bought by
other purchasers of the volume that you just acquired. But in
the cloud, a rich profile of who those customers are will be
available, along with business intelligence on what they have
been buying recently, how well the products have worked for
them, what their service calls and complaints have been, and
what might be needed by their businesses in the future. If a
customer has had a recent unresolved complaint, that will be
the first—not the last—thing acknowledged in any exchange,
human or machine-based. The customer might pour more
167