Heath Brownsworth

Armed with my latest and greatest cloud presentation, I headed out to a customer user conference this week. The driver for the conference was to provide an update on one of our primary HCM products, but for the purpose of my presentation the conference could have been centered around any of our products as I had been asked to provide an overview of cloud computing and speak to the benefits of Software as a Service (SaaS).

As the room began to fill up, I worked through my normal pre-presentation jitters by walking around and personally introducing myself and thanking our customers for being our customers. I love to do this not only because it is good business and that I am thankful that they our our customers, but because doing so also affords an opportunity to ask people what interested them enough about the cloud to want to attend the session. The responses were candid and ranged from the curious “I hear the cloud mentioned all of time, but I am not sure I really understand it” to the skeptical “We get cloud, but are not sure it makes sense for us”.

The responses offer good insight and help me tune the presentation to better meet the needs of the audience. In order to quickly get to a common frame of reference I always like to start with a definition of cloud computing and the one that continues to seem the most objective is the one published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

NIST continues by identifying 5 essential characteristics of the cloud:

Broad Network Access
On-demand Self Service
Measured Service
Resource Pooling
Rapid Elasticity

3 common Service Models in cloud computing:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Software as a Service (SaaS)

and 4 evolving Deployment Models:

Private
Community
Public
Hybrid

At this point heads are nodding. All of the cloud jargon and buzz words that people have heard now have a context and for them now exist within a reference framework. However, as I moved from defining the cloud to explaining the SaaS service model in greater detail, I was hit with a zinger from the ‘We get cloud’ customer, “SaaS is for you (the vendor), we give up all the control and you get all of the money”. This was certainly an ‘ah ha’ moment, at that point the realization set in that if this customer is clinging to the the ledge of the on-premise world and needs to be talked into the cloud, then surely there are others.

For those of us close to the cloud and to its service models, we take its benefits for granted and believe that everyone sees the cloud and the future as we do. So my response, partially in jest, to this customer who clearly has not bought into the cloud, or the SaaS service model, was “Yes, but the difference now is we no longer get all of the money up front!”.

There is no arguing with this customer’s claim that economies of scale provide reduced costs for the SaaS solution provider, but there are also economic rewards for the customer as well in that SaaS moves the customer from a CAPEX to OPEX software consumption model (I am not a finance guy, but my friends who are tell me that this is a good thing). Putting economic rewards aside though, SaaS is truly a win-win in that it creates a virtuous development cycle of innovation.

That sounds like a benefit, but what does it really mean? It means that software developers like to build cool new things, but in the on-premise world that almost always means that customers have to go through some sort of upgrade (cost/effort) to take advantage of new features or innovative functionality. However, with a SaaS solution, there is a customer base that can always consume the solution provider’s latest innovations. The net result of this cycle is that innovations come to market faster, at a higher level of quality and can be consumed without significant cost. In a world where speed and agility count, that is a pretty significant benefit to the customer.

Bottom line, it is always great to get out and meet with customers, they truly provide a real world perspective that helps to keep me grounded or that least keeps my feet on the ground even if my head is in the clouds. The marching orders are clear though, we have to do much better job at educating customers on how the cloud, and SaaS, benefit them every bit as much as it benefits us.

Heath-

(Cross-posted @ Skywriting)