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Living in the Clouds

Trend or revolution?
Grüderich offers some explanation for this question, ‘Put yourself in the shoes of an early industrialist. At that time you would have had your own electricity supply right in front of the factory door – the equivalent of having your servers in the basement today. However, nowadays, you only pay for the electricity that you use. The same thing is happening in computing right now: you only pay for what you need. I think this is a very exciting time to be in IT, because we’re finally at the point where technology actually does what we want it to do, and not the other way round. Despite this, it’s also interesting to see that some people feel that the Cloud is just a trend; but the internet was a trend too – we have to be open to change!’
For Naugès, the evolution of the Cloud is comparable to that of the industrial revolution. To him there are 10-yearly cycles in the IT World -the 90s saw the first PCs with Windows 3; in 2000, the internet appeared on the scene; and in 2010, the era of the Cloud began. ‘I think that by 2020, we will be asking ourselves how we ever managed without the Cloud; just like we ask ourselves today how we ever lived without mobile phones fifteen years ago! In the same way that fewer and fewer people produce their own energy, so fewer and fewer people will have their own servers.’
With the worldwide growth in web piracy, many are concerned about the Cloud’s potential lack of security. People seem to feel that they might lose control over sensitive data if they store it externally.
Grüderich responds by saying that 1 in 10 laptops gets stolen in the first 12 months after purchase, and 60% of sensitive data resides on laptops. ‘With Cloud Computing, you use the laptop as a tool to access the Cloud. If you lose your laptop, you just lose a piece of plastic’. He adds that Google can respond quickly to any threats that would affect the user. ‘The data is encrypted and safely stored on multiple data centers and multiple hard drives. Google builds its own data centers and services, and we have the best engineers in the world. The datacenters belong to us and are in secret locations to which only a limited number of staff have access. On top of this, the data is commonly stored, meaning no one can identify the owners of the data. If you lose something, it’s safely stored in the Cloud and you can get it back easily.
Ian Prince of In Extenso mentions other potential issues such as collateral costs (operations, installation and increased labour costs) and English language centricity. But as Naugès explains, the transition is just like any other industrial revolution. ‘Of course, it requires adaptation, effort, flexibility, some extra costs and the will to advance.
On the other hand, we could see it another way – collateral costs already exist anyway. With Cloud Computing, you just manage them better. Increased labour costs also mean a boost in employment.’ Regarding the English centricity issue, Naugès asserts that it is just a matter of time before the Cloud can be accessed in a wide variety of languages.
On March 14, Hewlett Packard announced its entry into the Cloud-computing business, joining existing competitors Amazon and Google. The Chief Executive of HP said they ‘see clearly a world in which the impact of Cloud and connectivity is changing not only the user experience, but how individuals, small businesses and enterprises will consume, deploy and leverage information technology.’ (LA Times, March 18, 2011) It is quite evident that business giants have engaged in migrating their businesses to the Cloud.
It is worth noting that some people are simply reluctant to change. As Guy Kawasaki, former Chief Evangelist at Apple warns during his lectures, ‘Don’t let the Bozos grind you down! They’re gonna tell you it can’t work, it won’t work! We don’t need another search engine…to Google! Who thought that we needed another search engine back in 1995?! I didn’t!’

Cloud Computing © Patrick Preperier

Case Study: Malakoff-Méderic

Nicolas Willieme, who was in charge of deploying Cloud solutions at Malakoff-Méderic, a French mutual insurance company, says that Cloud computing is more than just a trend. For them, it was not only about switching e-mail systems, but also about a whole new approach to the work environment as well as new ways to collaborate and to be productive. It optimizes corporate procedures and cuts costs.
Although the transition to the Cloud can be done in 24 hours, Malakoff-Méderic’s strategy was to gradually adopt the new system and to ensure its sustainability by making it employee friendly. Deployment occurred over a year to ensure the proper adoption and success of the platform. They started with project managers, the most mobile and interactive individuals in the company. They then turned to senior level individuals to ensure that the larger employee mass would want to use Cloud solutions as well. They even introduced a hotline which employees could call if they had questions regarding the new system.
By increasing their internal communications, transparency and collaboration, Malakoff-Méderic were able to implement the platform efficiently. At Malakoff-Méderic, most of the people who were using Office had to adapt which is why the year-long transition process was chosen to ensure that no user was ‘left behind’. The Google tools will soon have the same capacity as the Office tools.  Meanwhile, some of our people still use Office for non-collaborative work requiring advanced features. Willieme says that the company has already measured great improvements brought about by using the Cloud.

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