The Rolling Stones called it 46 years ago, and it can be applied to business phone technology today. After all the hype, cloud computing really is gaining actual traction, and not just in the SME (small and medium enterprises) market. A recent international survey of more than 100 multinational corporations found a 60 per cent increase in the take-up of cloud services among large organizations over the last year. Granted, the strongest showing was in Asia, which boasts an uptake of at least 63 percent, but with 43 percent of SMBs intending to install cloud-based solutions by the end of 2012 [as reported here] the music is in the cloud.
Telecommunications providers like Global Fibernet are extremely well-positioned to provide a very robust communications layer to the hype surrounding today’s cloud computing migration. Major telecommunications providers have the expertise in combining their network with managing data centers and they can use this expertise in building competitive advantages, especially involving price, compared to other players that only specialize in storage solutions.
Recently at the GEOINT 2011 Symposium in San Antonio, TX, Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper told the almost 4000 attendees that the United States Intelligence Community will use cloud computing as a tool to meet aggressive budget reduction targets. He’s quoted by AOL Defense: “The biggest portion of those cuts, spread across 10 years, will come from anything labeled information technology…Moving to the cloud, will provide huge savings of 30 percent to 40 percent savings...”
When you combine those types of potential savings with emerging technologies such as NFC (near field communications) payments and the ability to use mobile phones to directly submit credit card payments, it’s only a matter of time before the average SMB is marching to the beat.
