Page 199 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

Y O UR CL OUD STRATEG Y: WHAT KIND O F COMPANY DO Y O U W ANT?

show unexpected analysis and insight emerging from cloud
operations.
In short, in many organizations, IT is already charging
itself to introduce “cloudlike” capabilities into the firm’s data
center operations, whether that direction has come from the
top or not. At root, what’s needed is not a particular type of

computing so much as a platform for flexible business opera-
tions. This chapter projects that an internal cloud, working at
times with external cloud resources, will be such a platform.
It’s a platform that can expand for certain users upon need
and can support a high degree of social networking, informa-
tion retrieval, and sharing. It goes without saying that a new
company culture that understands the value of such collabo-

rative computing devices is also needed.

A Glimpse of a Flexible, Cloud-Based Future

Let’s consider a future scenario that perhaps illustrates how
such a business culture could come about.
It had been known for some time that something was amiss
in your company’s industry. Competitors who had defended

their turf for years seemed to be falling away overnight. Far
from being reassured, your company’s leaders were nervous
that the same thing might also happen to your company.
One day, a sure sign of trouble loomed on the horizon. A
new competitor in Malaysia had come up with an advanced
design of your flagship product. The upstart didn’t have the
brand recognition that your company had, but it had had a

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