Look at how IBM just framed up their $34B acquisition of Red Hat:
Bloomberg acknowledged the same thing:
OK, so … cloud is a big deal. Amazon is winning. Microsoft is probably second. Google is in there somewhere. So is IBM, but further down. So you’ve got “big tech” names, and the narrative is easy to follow — > “The younger guns are beating old Big Blue.”
Got it. Nice.
I fully understand all the efficiencies of cloud and cloud-first and The Cloud Economy or whatever, but we’re leaving this huge aspect on the table. No one ever seems to discuss it. It’s never in articles. I barely hear execs mention it.
Cloud should be empowering more remote work, less bullshit jobs, and helping orgs with costs.
It should be allowing a startup in Orlando to get top talent from Lisbon, and vice versa.
See, with cloud and WiFi both at scale, here’s how companies could save money (which companies love to do):
- Have less physical offices
- People can work where they want because they can pull info from anywhere, not a filing cabinet in XYZ Location
- Pay people salaries relative to the cost of living where they are presently
- All the sales guys can be true road warriors because the data they need is easy to pull down from the cloud on the go
- You can thus invest more in letting sales guys hit their numbers IRL, which is often way more effective
- Save money on digital paper-pusher jobs because again, the guys that directly make the money can pull the numbers and assets they need right out of the cloud
Feels like cloud should be empowering newer, cheaper, less-tethered-to-a-specific-place, more efficient, less-bullshit ways of working and hiring. But it feels like all anyone discusses are the supposed financial implications of cloud, and none of the people implications.
Feel that way at all, or no?
Ted: This :
See, with cloud and WiFi both at scale, here’s how companies could save money (which companies love to do):
Have less physical offices
People can work where they want because they can pull info from anywhere, not a filing cabinet in XYZ Location
Pay people salaries relative to the cost of living where they are presently
All the sales guys can be true road warriors because the data they need is easy to pull down from the cloud on the go
You can thus invest more in letting sales guys hit their numbers IRL, which is often way more effective
Save money on digital paper-pusher jobs because again, the guys that directly make the money can pull the numbers and assets they need right out of the cloud
Feels like cloud should be empowering newer, cheaper, less-tethered-to-a-specific-place, more efficient, less-bullshit ways of working and hiring. But it feels like all anyone discusses are the supposed financial implications of cloud, and none of the people implications.
Feel that way at all, or no?
Would require that those “not” in the High Tech industry truly understood the power of the cloud and therefore could leverage it whilst utilizing remote workers to distinct advantage. It would require (lets say it) old white guys to think outside the box and actually buy into people not being physically in an office and seen as actually delivering to the bottom line. Those are radical changes you are asking and “old white guys” don’t usually embrace change well. I’d like to think I am a different old white guy but others ; well they can’t be moved. So how do you show to the benefit of the old white guys the cloud move.
I think you’re right, and this is one of the promises of going cloud-first, but it’s in its infancy. Under the veneer of digital transformation buzzword bingo, I think most companies are still managing with early 20th century Taylor-esque principals; each human is a unit of productivity and let’s maximize efficiency and measure that with charts and graphs and squeeze for more efficiency. And also, I want to see your face in the office, Chet! Deep thought and solving the bigger, long-term problems? And god forbid, doing that primarily from outside the corporate walls? Who has time for that, and we don’t do that here.
Still, there are many software & cloud companies that are working on products and infrastructure to deliver on the possibilities of mobile-first and enabling cloud identity in a departure from the old days of having to get into the corporate network stronghold to access resources and apps and get your job done. Which generally meant, go to the office, or at least, connect to VPN. It’s coming, but we have a lot of baggage to shed to get there.