Looking at things from the perspective of how software is evaluated and brought into the enterprise, it's no wonder cloud computing is dramatically changing the landscape. Combine that with the trend of software vendors looking to compliance to shore up revenues, and customers pushing back to reduce their software maintenance costs, and I think we're in for some interesting changes in selling software over the next couple of years*.
In any case, I thought it would be interesting to put together a quick list of how software is piloted in a "traditional" purchase cycle, and how it might be piloted if "purchased" from a cloud.
So, assume a thorough selection process has been completed on a product and its alternatives (I don't think we do that well today either... I think it's too feature-focused and we're not nearly evaluating the "right" things), and we're talking about getting the first small set of people up and running on the selected solution.
Traditional Software Purchase
- Software is purchased.
- Hardware is purchased.
- Space is found in data centers for the production kit.
- A plan is created for moving into production, often a lengthy process inserted around specific rules/restrictions for changing production systems.
- Development and test environments are setup.
- Computer room space is found for the permanent location of the development and test kit.
- Any databases required to support the application are purchased and configured, including hardware if necessary.
- Administrative and security staff support is required to configure all this new equipment to company standards, backup procedures, and security policies.
Cloudly Purchased Software
- Get a login.
Even people who don't know anything about software should be able to figure out which is easier. And, while I shouldn't need to ask, but, how much longer do you think the first process takes than the second from the time a decision is made?
If you want to follow the doings of a new startup taking advantage of just this difference, follow Mike on Twitter. He's starting a new company and taking full advantage of open source and clouds to have some incredible infrastructure and development cost metrics - actually showing through his own experience what can be achieved.
Want to hear more? Remember, I'm speaking at the NY Cloud Computing Expo later this month.
* "Ray" Wang has been tweeting and blogging about this topic quite a bit. I find it very interesting to follow.