More cloud offerings arrive

Australia largest telco, Telstra, is now making available a range of hosted software application via its T-Suite brand. Interestingly, Telstra is also a big Microsoft customer so have I little doubt there is some sharing of resources going on here.

Because Telstra also provides broadband and 3G access you can appreciate how these Software as a Service (SaaS) model provides a good business model going forward.

Many experienced IT providers know that Telstra doesn’t always have the best name in the business for the services it provides yet it is big enough to overcome that and still be one of the largest ISP’s in the land. Due to their size, implementing something like this is pretty simple.

So what impact does that have on your average reseller? Probably not too much yet but it is a further warning that the landscape is changing. It is an indication that the big boys are able to offer services to traditional reseller customers on a month by month basis. This is not a model that is possible for most current resellers. Also, people like Telstra are going to be able to bundle Software as a Service with broadband, email and web hosting, mobiles and so on. Even if individual services are sub par their combined offering is enticing for many customers wanting the simplicity of a single supplier.

This is only the beginning of the cloud casting a shadow across the current landscape. It won’t be long before you see many other providers doing the same thing. I also expect Microsoft to come to the Australian market with something very soon.

If you are a traditional resellers you need to appreciate that your market is being changed by forces beyond your control. Your time to determine what direction you will take is slowly running out as more cloud offerings are forming on the horizon to blot out the sunshine of traditional IT market. Like it or not the change is coming.

I didn’t expect to be asked that

I was recently talking with someone and they started quizzing me about Microsoft Azure. Don’t know what that is? Well, it is Microsoft’s recently announced ‘Windows in the cloud’. Although it is still early days I get the impression that it far more developed that most people think. Anyway, back to my conversation. What was amazing was this person wasn’t a ‘techie’ by any stretch of the imagination, yet it was very clear that they had already started trying to work out how their world would change with the advent of Azure.

Another recent conversation around technology stopped me in my tracks again recently. Someone else asked me about Windows 7. Again, even though it is in pre-beta the word is already out on the street. People are wondering what are the benefits and what it will means for them.

I find of these conversations extremely interesting because it highlights a number of issues. Firstly, IT is now mainstream. No longer is the knowledge locked up with geeks, people use technology everyday and they want to stay informed. Secondly, the power of the Internet means that their ability to be informed (correctly or incorrectly) is much greater than it ever was. There are so many businesses who make money from disseminating information, it isn’t long before everyone’s heard the rumour for some dark obscure corner of the globe. Thirdly, it demonstrates that people want to know what the direction of technology is and how it is going to affect them? How can they benefit from what’s not only available now but also in the future.

Gone are the days when the ‘techie’ was the only who knew what was going on. Now days, everybody is far more informed and interested. If you are in the technology game then you are going to have to work hard to stay up to date because it’s all changing so rapidly now. Ignoring or denying the change is likely to be painful but not nearly as painful as not altering strategy to accommodate. When the ‘average’ person in the street starts asking about cloud computing you know it is here.