Who Are Cloud Providers And Cloud Consumers? Depends On Whom You Ask

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Joe McKendrick.

The cloud is forcing enterprises and vendors alike to reconsider what business they are in. And for many enterprises, the growth of private cloud capabilities puts them only a step away from becoming cloud solutions providers themselves. For confirmation of this, just ask the tech vendors themselves. In the latest annual report on the future of the software and services industry from the Software & Information Industry Association, there are the predictable levels of boundless optimism and market-speak that you expect from tech vendor executives.

But there is also an acknowledgement that cloud computing, in all its various forms, is shifting the dynamic between providers and consumers of technology services and solutions. In fact, there’s an undercurrent of thought that it’s not clear anymore who a “provider” and who a “consumer” may be. The report, based on contributions from 37 top executives at software and cloud companies, surfaced some interesting observations:…

IT shops are becoming service providers themselves: A number of software executives point to the fact that IT departments themselves are becoming software or service companies. “Fundamentally, large enterprises continue to be run by IT departments tucked behind a firewall,” says David Roth, CEO of AppFirst. “However, these IT shops are realizing the value in becoming the service providers of private cloud offerings: they can provide the agility that their departments require, while ensuring that their security and governance standards are being met.”…

Read more from the source @ http://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2013/05/13/who-are-cloud-providers-and-cloud-consumers-depends-on-whom-you-ask/