Tag Archives: Google

The Facebook Float: is it because they see a Google+ future?


There was lots of excitement last week with news that Facebook plans to IPO, and with monstrous valuations of up to $100 billion. Crazy for a business that is only 8 years old. It got me thinking about the state of the social networking market – and why Facebook have decided to float now.

Innovation Adoption Lifecycle

I'm an early adopter

When it comes to social networks I would guess I am not an innovator, but an early adopter according to the Innovation Adoption Lifecycle. I tend to sign up once I start getting invitations from the innovators in my network – I’m on Google+ but not on Pinterest yet!

For me this is because social networks subscribe to Metcalfe’s Law which states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of users. Imagine a telephone system where you have the only phone – not a very useful system.

Metcalfe's Law

Two telephones can make only one connection, five can make 10 connections, and twelve can make 66 connections.

So with Social Networks the more users you have, the higher number of contributing users you will have, and the greater value that your users will receive.

Facebook is the clear leader with approaching one billion users on the service, uploading a massive amount of content each day, and providing huge value to its users. An unassailable lead perhaps.

Google+ launched in the Summer of 2011 with much fanfare, and comment from critics that “it’s just full of techies” and that “there isn’t much going on there”. However I think this misses the crucial point. Take Metcalfe’s Law into account, and actually look at the technology on offer and you see that Google+ is indeed a potential Facebook killer.

It’s integrated (or in the process of integrating with) many of the services that users already use every day.

  • Search
  • YouTube
  • Gmail
  • Voice and Video Chat (Google Hangouts are just awesome!)
  • Docs

Suddenly Google+ is the ‘platform’ that Facebook has always talked about – becoming the single entry point into the web off which users embark on their browsing journey. Google+ provides the social layer across everything you use.

Google+ is not just a social network, it is an entire communications infrastructure and that is something that Facebook have consistently tried to deliver. Only recently Facebook talked of a whole new way of messaging – but I’m yet to see that take effect.

In the few months I’ve been on Google+ since it was made available to Google Apps users I’ve seen a fantastic community growing and there is real passion in those that use it that it is just at the start of it’s journey.

It’s my belief that Facebook see the future of Google+ and have decided that now might be an opportune time to cash in, before the power of Metcalfe’s Law takes effect and people start seeing more value from their Google+ timeline than they do from their Facebook timeline.

But those are just my thoughts! Are you on Google+ yet? How are you finding it? If you are then look for me and Circle me!

I hope you have enjoyed this post. If so, please subscribe to the blog and share with your network!

Transparent Technology – 5 companies that succeed by hiding away!


A couple of week’s ago I finished work, poured a glass of wine and settled down to watch the livestream from Google Atmosphere which was just starting in Mountain View.  Google host the annual event and invite leading CIO’s to understand what Google is up to, and to build credibility that this is not just a search engine – this is a serious enterprise technology company.

I had tuned in because I wanted to see Dave Girouard presenting.  Dave is VP of Product Management and has been a driving force behind the Google Apps suite.

You can see the presentation below, but one comment really stuck with me – and that was about transparent technology.  You can jump right to it at 10 minutes 20 seconds in.  He relates a story of a carpenter doing some work in his kitchen.  He’s chatting with the carpenter and asks him why he uses one tool over another.

The carpenter replies that with the better tool he’s only thinking about the wood, whereas with the worse tool he is thinking about what’s in his hand.  Dave suggests that it should be the same with technology – you want a specific result, and any technology that you have to think about to get it is doing something wrong.

It got me thinking about technologies that I’ve experienced that have really done well at this:

MessageLabs: I spent 10 years working at MessageLabs, a pioneer in cloud based email security.  The service has many millions of users on it and they all receive clean email into their inbox.  As a user you have no interaction with the service which makes a massive improvement on having to update security software on your laptop every week.

Skype: My wife is South African and until we got Skype we’d have some pretty expensive phone calls for her to catch up with her mum every week.  Then we moved onto Skype and got the double benefit of video and no call charges.  It’s so easy to use that as far as we are concerned we’re just looking at a window into South Africa even though there is so much complexity in the background.

Amazon: How many times have you bought a book on Amazon even before you’ve really made your mind up?!  One click ordering makes the purchasing process so simple, and combined with delivery to your Kindle you are reading in seconds from when you thought “I’m going to buy a book”

Google Chrome:  This is my browser of choice, and primarily because there is nothing to it – it is so lightweight compared to my previous experiences of browsers – the focus is all on the content that you want to look at.

These are a few of my thoughts on transparent technologies.  What technologies do you love because they are not visible?  What products are the opposite and make you spend time working out how to use them rather than what your trying to achieve?

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  If so, please share with your network and subscribe in the sidebar.

 

5 integrations I’d like to see between Salesforce and Google Apps


Google Apps Logo

As a first time visitor to Dreamforce this year I am really excited to see Google Chairman Eric Schmidt will be making the Thursday afternoon Keynote.  For me Salesforce and Google are two of the most innovotive and exciting Cloud companies, and the potential for them to work closer together is really positive.

Today there are some neat integrations on both the Google Apps side, and the Google Adwords side.  You can track your Pay per Click campaign against actual revenues, and you can email from GMail by clicking on contacts within Salesforce.

Although I hardly think Eric will use his keynote to announce new integrations, here are a few I would love to see.

Native Calendar Sync

Although this was featured on the Salesforce.com site I am not sure it ever really existed.  The main contender is an AppExchange solution from Appirio.  Whilst this works well it does require maintaining passwords for both systems in Appirio Calendar Sync.  I’d love to see the ability to add events directly to my Google Calendar, and then choose which ones that are business related that I want to sync back to Salesforce.  For me the Google Calendar interface is really simple to use when creating invites and I’d prefer to do it that way.

In addition, if you do use Salesforce for invitations, currently it only provides the option to Add to Outlook.  Not very helpful if your recipient is on Google Apps!

GMail Send and add to Salesforce

I have a Google Contact called “Add to Salesforce” with my Email to Salesforce as the address.  I just BCC this contact whenever I am emailing a Salesforce Lead or Contact.  Simple.  But it would be nice to have a Lab that could be enabled giving me a “Send and Add to Salesforce” option to save me a couple of clicks.

GMail Salesforce Contextual Gadget

It would be really useful to have a Gadget/Widget that appears alongside or within emails that allows me to add a particular inbound email into Salesforce.  I’m assuming this would just be the single email and not the entire conversation.  At the moment I have to forward and inbound email to my “Add to Salesforce” contact.  Not too onerous, but it could be better.

Within this gadget we could see relavent information for that Contact or Lead – perhaps their phone number, value of open opportunities, open cases, lead status?  Anything that helps users to have relavent information served up in the system they are already using is valuable.

Task syncing

I already have a “NewVoiceMedia” tasks list in Google, so it would be cool if this synced tasks that I create in Salesforce.  As I tick them off in Google this could be replicated back to Salesforce.

Chatter/Google Chat integration

I love Chatter.  I love asking someone a question of someone, and then having others help out with the answer.  It would be great to have Google Chat presence enabled within the Chatter feed, so I could quickly fire up a chat session to get more detail from someone that has responded.  Perhaps there could even be the option to add that chat to the Chatter feed if it was relevant.

Summary

I would love to see these two businesses get closer over the coming months, but in the meantime there are a host of partners that are developing cool solutions to plug these gaps.  Take a look at Cirrus Insight who are due to launch soon and seem to have the GMail Gadget nailed.  I can’t wait to see it in action.

Are there any other integrations that would help you to work better?  Perhaps integrating Google Forms instead of Surveyforce, or exposing Dashboards in Google Sites?

I hope you have enjoyed this post. If so please share with your network and subscribe in the sidebar.

Google Apps for Education – 3 ways Google is improving the learning experience


In this guest post, Zoe Ross, founder of DoDigital and Google Apps for Education Certified Trainer, discusses how Google Apps is being used in schools and colleges throughout the UK.

I’m delighted to have been asked to write this guest blog post in which I’ll discuss some of the ways in which Google Apps for Education is being used in schools and colleges to enhance teaching and learning. From giving students new and safe ways to share their work, to increasing communication between staff and reaching out to the community, Google Apps for Education has something for every educational organisation!

Increasing collaboration and communication amongst students.

There are many ways in which Google Apps encourages students to work together. My favourite tool from the Apps suite continues to be Google Docs which allows students to work on one document in real time. This means, if desired, an entire class can collaborate on one document. In Phil Bagge’s primary class, his pupils conduct cooling experiments, enter their data on one spreadsheet and then undertake analysis as a whole class using the built in graphing tools.

Add into the mix the in-built chat facility when working on a document and you have a really powerful way that pupils can quickly and easily collaborate. In my own, and other teachers’ experience, once students have got over the initial novelty of the ability to send instant messages and work on the same document at once in Google docs, they generally use it sensibly.

Subsequently, it can have an incredibly positive impact on the way they think about and self-assess their work as shown in Oliver Quinlan’s class. However, as James Mitchie’s experiences illustrate, even with the best of intentions, collaboration in this way is a new concept for students and takes time and careful planning to work effectively.

Another great way of increasing student collaboration is through a shared calendar on which they input their birthdays and other important dates. Responsibility for this can be shared amongst the entire class, or one or two pupils each half-term. Shared calendars are also a great way for schools to increase communication with parents.

Encouraging Parental Engagement

The ability to share and collaborate on multiple calendars means that schools can easily share important dates with parents. The calendar can be embedded into the school website, or another site, along with blogs, You Tube channels and other useful links as Helen Morgan has done in her department.

Google Sites are a very simple web design tool for children to use and Ian Addison’s pupils have been creating their own websites to share information about their local area. Many schools are also starting to use Google Apps instead of expensive virtual learning environments and Kevin McLaughlin outlines the process he went through to do just that here.
Furthermore, Google forms are also a superb way to find out what parents are thinking and collect anything from feedback on the school website to preferences for appointment times at parents’ evenings. The beauty of course with forms, other than the ease with which they can be created and shared via email or embedded into a website, is that the results are automatically collated into a spreadsheet, complete with timestamp. It is therefore hugely beneficial for schools who have been collecting such information via paper forms. Google includes some good instructions to using forms here.

Increase Teacher Productivity

Forms can also be used in many ways, to collect data and opinions and saving teachers time which they can then use to focus on teaching. There are some fantastic ideas from teachers all over the World in Tom Barrett’s fantastic ‘Interesting Ways’ series. Another great, time-saving way of using forms is to create self-grading quizzes for pupils. A detailed tutorial of how to do this is here.

Moreover, communication and collaboration between staff becomes easier using Google Apps. Sharing departmental or administrative documents is simple and they can be worked on by multiple staff simultaneously meaning less time spent on administration and more time for teaching.

Similarly, the ability to share calendars with different groups allows senior managers and departments to have their own shared calendars which makes arranging meetings or checking when people are available very straightforward. A school can also set up a room, or laptop trolly as a resource, making booking that room or trolley very simple and one less administrative task for someone to have to manage. Reminders can be sent via email, popups or text message, making life easier for busy teachers.

Indeed, the ability to access email, documents & all information from home & any device with internet connection means staff can access their work from anywhere and at anytime, if they choose to do so, and being able to publish calendar events directly to twitter is fantastic for a school that is trying to increase communication with parents. Danny Silva shows you how here.
Although I have really only been able to scratch the surface of what can be achieved with Google Apps for Education in this post, I hope I have shared with you how the Apps suite is offering great collaboration and communication opportunities for students, staff and parents alike. Put simply, Google Apps has real scope to enhance teaching and learning in any educational organisation. So what are you waiting for? It’s time to Go Google!

Zoe Ross is founder of DoDigital, a social enterprise which promotes the creative use of technology in education. A ICT teacher, Zoe is a Google Certified Trainer and together with other Google Certified Teachers is running a Google Apps for Education workshop on 8th June in London.

Microsoft to spend 90% of R&D budget on Cloud – validating the market for Google and Salesforce to dominate.


Yesterday the Sunday Telegraph ran a very interesting piece on Microsoft, and Steve Ballmer’s visit to the UK that takes place this week.  On Tuesday (5th October) Steve Ballmer will be presenting at the London School of Economics and explaining that Microsoft is all about the Cloud and that the future of Microsoft will be dependent on their success in this new market.

Whilst he will be speaking to a hall of students, it is clear that his message is for the wider business community – the CIO’s, IT Directors and IT Managers in the UK and across Europe.  The article quotes a Gartner statistic that the US has been leading the way with Cloud Computing, spending 58% of total IT budget last year in the Cloud, compared to just 24% in Western Europe.

Ballmer will confirm that by next year 90% of their annual $9.5 billion Research and Development budget will be spent on Cloud Computing.  90%.  A huge commitment to a market that is yet to make many of the leading ‘traditional’ technology vendors any serious revenues.  The main thrust of this development so far has been taking Office and Exchange into the Cloud as a Hosted Service, and Windows Azure – a cloud platform on which Businesses can develop and host their own applications.

Hostages

Microsoft is forced to adopt the Cloud

Microsoft is forced to adopt the Cloud

As I am reading the article a vision pops into my head of a Hostage video.  You know the one where the kidnappers push their captive in front of the camera and get them to renounce their firmly held beliefs and declare that everyone should believe the captor’s ideology.  I can see Steve Ballmer on screen, with the True Cloud Industry holding a big gun just out of shot.

“Software is bad.  We know that now.  We’re all in the Cloud and you should be to.” – Classic stuff.

The difficulty that Microsoft, and other niche market leaders like Sage have is that they are making too much money doing what they have been doing for the last 20 years.  They have one key responsibility and that is to their shareholders.  Their key asset is the software or hardware appliances that they are selling by the truck load today.  Every Cloud decision, every Cloud innovation is tinged with software, is diluted by on-premise.

I experienced this first-hand in my time at Symantec.  Symantec paid almost $700m for MessageLabs, a leading Cloud email and web security company.  Symantec made the right noises that they wanted to lead the Cloud charge and buying the market leader was the way to do that.  But this is a Company turning over $7b a year from Software and Licences.  Very soon the signs appeared.  MessageLabs was renamed Symantec Hosted Services.  Not Cloud, not SaaS – but Hosted Services.  To me, that says “Doing what we do here, over there” – which is not True Cloud.  Then the word “Hybrid” starts to creep in.  ”Do something here and there” – not True Cloud.  Very soon the entrepeneaurial True Cloud flame has been snuffed out.

Leaders or Followers

This is exactly the same issue that Microsoft will face.  Whether they are hostages, or they really believe in the Cloud, they will always have the difficulty of balancing the new world with the mega-beast of their existing business, and whilst they spend time trying to work out internally what “Hybrid” or “Hosted” really means, the True Cloud vendors like Salesforce.com, and Google, who have no such baggage, will be busy innovating and dominating the market.

I’m not one to write Microsoft off – but I have to ask the question – are they leading this Cloud market, or following?

I believe they are reluctant followers, and for that reason Keboko has been resolute in our focus on just two True Cloud vendors – Salesforce and Google.

What do you think about Microsoft’s strategy?  Do you think Microsoft are leaders or followers in the Cloud market?

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  If so, please subscribe in the sidebar and share with your network.

The curious case of Microsoft, Google and the Giraffe’s neck.


Richard Dawkins is perhaps one of the most famous atheists, with his popular books, including The God Delusion becoming best sellers over recent years.  Last year he featured in a UK TV series called Inside Nature’s Giants in which a range of experts from numerous fields dissected some of our largest animals, from the Whale, to the Elephant, and also including a Giraffe.

The giraffe’s neck has intrigued man ever since the species was first discovered – how did it get so long?  Depending on your attitude to religion and evolutionary theory it was either created that way, or it has evolved over many, many years.

Richard Dawkins featured on the programme to help dissect the giraffe’s neck and demonstrate why he believes in evolutionary theory.  The laryngeal nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx (the voice box).  It takes a slightly roundabout route going down the neck to the thorax, and then travelling back up to the larynx.  In most animals therefore it doesn’t have a huge distance to travel.

However, in Giraffe’s the laryngeal nerve travels a very long way, as the nerve leaves the brain, and goes all the way down to the bottom of the neck and then all the way back up again to the larynx – a distance of many metres.

Giraffe's Neck

Giraffe’s are like Microsoft!

Richard Dawkins’ assertion is that any intelligent design would have just drawn a short line from A to B.  Only evolution, taking place in very small steps, over many thousands of years would have gradually lengthened the neck, along with the nerve inside it – unable to see that the nerve itself should remain as a short direct link.

I see huge similarities with the technology industry today, as the massive Enterprises of the past decade try and evolve their business model into the Cloud.  Microsoft declare that “We’re all in the Cloud”.

In my mind I’m seeing the Giraffe’s neck.  As the market has developed, evolution has added more products to the Microsoft portfolio.  More features in each product, more complexity for end users, more cost for clients.

When I speak to customers of all sizes about Google Apps – more often than not I hear “Microsoft can do that.”, “We just VPN in”, “We’re deploying Sharepoint”, “We use Outlook Web Access”, “We’re looking at Microsoft Dynamics and BPOS”.

The evolutionary journey has meant that it is possible to get from A to B with traditional software providers.  At some point though business owners and their IT teams need to take a step back and ask “Is there a better, quicker, cheaper way of getting from A to B?”

I’m certain of this because of the number of times I hear “Well of course, if we were starting today we wouldn’t do it like this – we’d be looking at Google Apps.”  And pretty much every start-up I have met with over the past year is doing exactly that.

I certainly believe that over the next ten years there will be a massive transition as companies of all sizes step out, and look back into their business and realise that they don’t need the Giraffe’s neck anymore – they can get their business where it needs to go in a much better way using a Cloud vendor that was designed for the modern world businesses find themselves in.

Summary

I hope this week’s post has been enjoyable, and dare I say it, a little educational!  I really appreciate your comments and feedback below.

Please feel free to subscribe in the sidebar and share with your network.

Google’s Tools for Online Success for SMB’s


In association with the US Small Business Association, Google has recently launched a tidy little site with a collection of videos to help Small Businesses with their online presence.

The site is targeted towards a US audience but the tips and tricks are universal.

You can access the site using this link – Google Tools for Online Success

In this video the owners of Make My Cake talk about the value of great imagery on a website to entice site visitors.

Google have also recently initiated a Small Business Blog focused on ways that Small Businesses are using the myriad of Google services available.  You can subscribe to the Google Small Business blog here.

I hope you find this useful.  This post is the first in a series of regular ‘top-up’ posts to support Blog Wednesday’s main weekly post.

Feel free to share with your network and subscribe in the sidebar.

Bookmark and Share

Google, Salesforce, the Data Protection Act and what that means for your business.


Across the multiple LinkedIn Groups, Twitter and Facebook pages, and on the blog itself I have been humbled by they fantastic and vigorous debate that the blog’s posts generate.  It is clear that amongst the Business Community there is a real need to understand what Cloud Computing really means to your Company and to your bottom line.  When we are able to forget about the technology, and start thinking about what that actually enables us to do then the true excitement starts – remote working, disperse teams working on a single document, sales people able to cut out “admin day”, MD’s being able to chase up debtors in realtime, IT teams being able to align with the business strategy.

There have also been some common themes in the comments, where there are natural concerns around what it means to a business to have their applications running outside of their network:

  1. What if my internet connection goes down?
  2. How secure is my data/what are the legal implications?

Today, I want to spend some time on the second point.  I want to try and differentiate between two words, that in the ‘old world’ meant the same thing, but in the ‘new world’ actually mean the opposite – Control and Security.

When you run your applications in your own network, and in your own office, you have control.  You can see the boxes.  You can see the light is on and hear the fan.  Perhaps you are not happy with them under a desk so you buy a server cabinet, perhaps as your rack of hardware grows you dedicate a cupboard or small room to it.  You provide a combination lock for the door and install some CCTV to the building.  You have RedCare on your Phoneline.  You add a redundant Exchange server in case the first one goes down.  You have a back-up tape system and take the tapes home every night (or try to).  You have a security guard who patrols the business park.  He keeps an eye on things at night.

“I have control.  I have security.”

In a Cloud environment when you add a new contact record into Salesforce the data is stored…….somewhere on the internet.  When you send an important email through Google Apps the record of it is…..I’m not sure.  When I add in this month’s invoices in Xero they are all kept…….oh dear me!

“I have no control.  I have no security.”

Google Salesforce Cloud Responsibilities

What are your responsibilities towards data?

But this is incorrect.  Have a think about your personal bank account.  We all hear mythical stories of the man who kept his money under the mattress, because he knew where it was, and he had control.  He felt it was more secure.  But you and I know that our money is much more secure in a bank.  After all – they are not just looking after our money, they are looking after billions of pounds worth, and therefore their security will be much greater than my Yale lock on the front door.  More so, because they look after so much money, they can afford to provide much better services to clients than my mattress could provide.  Interest for a start, Cash machines so I can access my money anywhere, and because banking is a cloud model (i.e. my money isn’t held in my branch) I can use internet banking from any connected device to manage my funds and pay my bills.

When we look at Google and Salesforce as two of the leading Cloud providers we need to do our due diligence as we would for an on-premise solution, but we must also recognise that the physical, technical and human security that they provide will be way beyond what even the largest Corporates could afford to deploy themselves.

If we take Google for example – they provide a Security Whitepaper which goes into great detail explaining the multiple levels of security that they provide to you as a client.  As a business owner the question I ask myself is “Could I get close to matching this in my own office?”  The answer is no.

Salesforce also provide an insight into the levels of security they provide in their Security Statement.  Again, as a business owner I take heart from the fact that Enterprise clients of Salesforce like Bank of America, or Japan Post will have done far more rigourous due diligence than I would require.

The second part of the data security question is about it’s location.  As a business owner collecting and holding customer data you will know only too well your responisbilities under the Data Protection Act, FSA Regulations and PCI Compliance.

I am not a qualified legal advisor so the following should not be taken as official advice, but I can offer my assessment of the situation.

Principle 8 of the Data Protection Act says that:

“Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the EEA unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.”

In real words – you can’t send personal data to a country with lower standards of protection than the originating country.  The USA (where most Cloud data is held) is not an approved country, and so the US and EU have set up Safe Harbour (Safe Harbor) – whereby US Companies can become approved and therefore fit within the Data Protection Act Guideline.  You can see that Google and Salesforce are both accredited by searching here, and indeed check any other Cloud vendor that you may be considering.

If you take Credit Card Payments then you will be subject to PCI Compliance to ensure the integrity of that data.  It is unlikely that you would want this data to be transferred to your Cloud Email or CRM services, but it would be worth investigating any potential liabilities here.  The PCI Security Standards Council does not appear to have any specific guidance on how Cloud vendors can approve themselves at this time, so worth keeping an eye on their site.

If you are regulated by the Financial Services Authority, then their latest publication on this matter is this 2008 document, “Your responsibilities for customer data security”  A couple of points that I take from this document are the guidance around taking data off-site, i.e. employees leaving USB keys or laptops on trains – with Cloud Computing this problem disappears as there is nothing on the laptop.  The document also points out responsibility for backing up data.  In a cloud environment your data is held on multiple redundant systems, but with both Google and Salesforce you do have the ability to make back-ups to store on-site if you wish – a complete opposite of what used to happen!

When it comes to third party suppliers the FSA guidance is

“You should know who your third party suppliers are, the security arrangements around any customer data that they hold or have access to, and how they vet their staff.”

My advice here is to remember, just because it isn’t in your office doesn’t mean it is not your responsibility.  You should take the time to review the security statements of your chosen providers, check what standards they comply with, and ensure that should you ever have to defend or discuss your data strategy that you made use of all the information available.

As a business owner myself I am comfortable that I have done this and am comfortable to be using Google Apps and Salesforce to run my business.

I hope this post has been useful.  I’m sure there will be some interesting debate and I look forward to your comments.  Please feel free to share with your network and subscribe in the sidebar.

Bookmark and Share

63% of Small Businesses have not heard of Cloud Computing – are you one of them?


I came across a news item this week reporting a recent survey of SMB’s (1-99 employees) from the US, UK, Germany, Italy and Brazil.  The survey by Techaisle found that only 37% of Small Businesses had heard of Cloud Computing.  Of those that had heard of Cloud Computing, 13% did not understand what it meant.

Over in technology vendor land there is a frantic buzz around Cloud Computing.  The leading vendors trip over themselves in an effort to tout their Cloud credentials.  New Cloud Heavyweights such as Google and Salesforce are reporting massive revenues but barely existed 10 years ago.  Venture Capital funding is pouring into Cloud based companies.  There is a massive amount of hype within the technology industry, and you can quantify the interest by typing “Cloud Computing” into Google Trends.

Google Trends Cloud Computing

Google searches for Cloud Computing are rising fast.

But back in the real world of real businesses, of accountants practices, of small hotel chains, of construction companies the term Cloud Computing has no resonance with the majority of people.

I’ve been intrigued as I go through the start-up phase for Keboko and I’ve been speaking with friends and acquaintances across a diverse range of industries.  The reaction to my statement that Keboko is “a Cloud Service Provider, helping small and medium sized companies focus on their core business by migrating their applications into the Cloud.” has been an eye opener.

Blank stares all round.  Usually followed by “that sounds very complicated!”

It’s important for me to understand that Cloud Computing is a different language to most businesses and that for it to really succeed companies like ours, and the leading vendors themselves like Google and Salesforce and Xero will have to leave the technology behind, and focus on what they will actually “do” for a business and it’s bottom line.

If you are one of the 63% that have not heard of Cloud Computing, then the best analogy I can give you is Electricity.  In the early days of Electrical Power businesses would purchase, install, maintain and run their own power generation systems.  Usually a steam generator, or perhaps some kind of water wheel.  This was mainly due to necessity, in that electricity could not be transmitted over long distances.  But in time, the transfer to Alternating Current saw the rise of the Utility Company, a business that generated Electricity on a much larger scale and with a much higher level of service.  Because they could scale to hundreds, and then thousands of clients they experienced much lower costs per unit, and passed these cost reductions on to their clients.

Of course there were some larger companies who held out – “Electricity is too important to leave to someone else” but they too reached the point where the cost of running their own power station was too high, and they could never reach the service levels of the Utility Companies.  Today as you run your business you take it for granted that you use an electricity company instead of generating power yourself.  (Further detail on the Electricity analogy is in my Book Review of The Big Switch).

Messy Server Room

Are you trying to run your own power station?

Now, if we look at how businesses have adopted technology.  When you launched you probably just needed a laptop or PC.  Then you recruited a few more people and needed an email server, and maybe a file server to store shared documents.  This was a bit beyond your own team so you brought in an external consultant (or maybe recruited someone).  He said you needed a firewall to protect yourself and an Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam appliance.  He suggested you get a back-up server and you take tapes off site each night (or each week if you are busy).  You then needed an accounts package, and so that sits on another server.  Oh and there is a database of customers that you use.

All of this is on your network (or maybe hosted by your IT consultant), it is your kit, you paid for it, and it is depreciating on your P&L.  It is probably not the current version (Exchange 2003, or an old version of Sage) and you probably couldn’t say which box is adding the most value to your business.

Now to understand the benefit of Cloud Computing just overlay the Electricity Analogy on your IT systems.  Stop “generating IT” yourselves, start using a “utility IT provider”, always be on the most current version, own no depreciating assets, redirect your IT employees to business growth strategies and ultimately stop running a mini-datacentre and focus on your core business – accounting, retail, manufacturing….

There will always be some people who say “IT is too important to leave to someone else,” but as with water, electricity, gas and even banking, some of the core struts to our existence are better delivered as a service than by trying to do it ourselves.

If this idea has piqued your interest, then your first stop will be to have a chat with your internal IT team, or your external IT Consultant – “I’ve heard about Cloud Computing – what do you think?”

Now I don’t know your IT guy, but he might feel that Cloud Computing threatens his existence (who needs a turbine maintenance team when you are plugging in…) so I would urge to you reframe the question, “If we moved some of our applications to the Cloud and freed up 40% of your time and budget, how do you think you could help us better with our core business strategy of ….more new customers, more products per customer, lower debtor days?” (amend as applicable)

Immediately you have turned this into a positive change for him (and you) and you have an employee or consultant who was a cost to the business, focusing on business growth.  That really is the heart of Cloud Computing.  Not the technology.

I hope this has been a helpful introduction to Cloud Computing.  If you’d like to understand more then Keboko would be happy to run an individual session for your business, either over the phone or in person.  Just contact me through the contact form on the Keboko page on this site.

If you have enjoyed this post then please share with your network and subscribe in the sidebar.

Bookmark and Share

The Emperor’s New Clothes – Private Cloud is just Virtualised Hosting isn’t it?


This week has seen the second hosting of the Cloud Computing World Forum at Olympia in London.  Three days of conference, workshops and exhibitions focused entirely on the emerging Cloud industry.  I attended yesterday and learned a lot, validating my own ideas of what Cloud is, and what it isn’t and where the opportunity lies for business owners.

As with any new technology there is a huge amount of hype – “Cloud is going to change the way the human race functions” (no-one actually said that).  When you consider that perhaps less than 5% of businesses have actually deployed a Cloud solution it could be said that a three day expo is a bit over the top for the current demand, but the organisers had an impressive line of up speakers – not just vendors like Microsoft, SAP, and Salesforce touting their Cloud credentials, but Enterprise customers like the Telegraph Media Group happy to explain how they have got ahead of the pack and migrated much of their non-core infrastructure to the Cloud.

There seemed to be a lot of attendees, certainly compared to other technology love-ins I’ve been to recently.  I was unsure who they were though – I don’t believe they were business owners.  Perhaps some CIO’s for larger companies, or traditional vendors trying to understand what the competition is and how to leverage this new market.

Before I dive into my the title subject, let me list the main nomenclature used yesterday and within the Cloud Industry

Public Cloud – This is what I call True Cloud – a multi-tenant, hosted service such as Google Apps, Salesforce.com or Facebook.

Private Cloud – This is where a large Enterprise, or their outsourcer hosts their specific virtualised servers in a secure datacentre.

Hybrid Cloud – This is where a Private Cloud is extended to leverage Public Cloud resources – perhaps a database hosted on Amazon Web Services.

Community Cloud – This is where multiple organisations in a similar industry use a single cloud – such as the G-Cloud touted by the UK Government.

SaaS – This is a Cloud application for use by end users such as Google Apps or Salesforce.com

PaaS – This is a Cloud Platform for ISV’s to develop SaaS applications on such as Google Apps Marketplace or Force.com

IaaS- This is raw computing power, either servers in a datacentre, or from a Public Cloud such as Amazon Web Services.

One thing that struck me was the heavy focus on Private Cloud.  With every presentation about Private Cloud I sit through, and every SI, or Outsourcer that pushes their own version of Private Cloud – is it just me that wants to stand up and scream: “You’re just talking about virtualised hosting!”

Private Cloud Data Centre

If you can point to your server here, then you are not True Cloud

Am I missing something?  You take a bunch of servers, host them in your or their datacentre, virtualise them, and run your applications on them.  As specific applications need more or less you spread the resources around.

You might have heard the phrase “Cloudwashing” which refers to technology vendors taking traditional on-premise applications, hosting them in the internet and slapping the term ‘Cloud’ on it.  Hosting companies have been hosting for decades.  They called it….hosting.  Now because of a bit of VM-Ware or Hyper-V they call it Private Cloud and the enterprise market goes weak at the knees.

The Emperor’s new clothes if you ask me.  ”The benefits of Cloud with the security of your own infrastructure.”  I don’t buy it.

Cloud for me is Public Cloud – and requires three things:

Someone else hosts it – i.e. nothing on your own network

Multi-Tenant/Single Instance – you cannot point to a box and say “that is my server.”  Every client globally runs the same instance of the software.

Rental model – no Capital investment to tie you in.

It is only with these three tenets that you get the massive scale and cost reductions that the Cloud can truly provide – the key one being the second point – multi-tenant/single instance.  By having millions of users on your single instance you spread your development and infrastructure costs across a much wider base.  Now I’m not saying that ‘Private Cloud’ (Virtualised Hosting) doesn’t have it’s place – it absolutely does.  Large Enterprise has specific niche applications that are  not available on the Public Cloud, or at this stage the security credentials of the providers do not match their specific requirements.  There will always be some applications that you wish to keep on your own network.

But don’t hijack the Cloud buzzword because it makes vendors feel better.  Private Cloud = Hosting.  Infrastructure as a Service = Hosting.  True Cloud is Public Cloud and SaaS.  PaaS creeps into True Cloud once a SaaS application has been developed on it.  Perhaps Private Cloud allows individuals that don’t really buy in to the Cloud concept to tell their CEO that they are ‘in the Cloud’ whilst actually carrying on exactly as they have done in the past.

As a business owner you will have to do a lot of due diligence to work out exactly what it is you are or are not getting.  The word Cloud has now become so diluted as to have little real relevance to your decision making.

I am ready to stand corrected on my assessment of Private Cloud.  Have I missed something fundamental?

I appreciate your comments.  If you have enjoyed this post them please feel free to subscribe in the sidebar and share with your network.

Bookmark and Share