Cloud Computing: The Boiling Frog

Puzzling title, you say? For anyone not familiar with the anecdote of the "boiling frog", the premise is that a frog placed in boiling water will immediately jump out but a frog placed in cold water that is slowly heated will not notice the gradual temperature increase and be boiled to death. Quoting Wikipedia, "The story is a metaphor for the inability of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually."

I would argue that this is precisely what is happening right now with Cloud Computing. Who is the frog, you ask? The frog is the IT director, manager or service provider who fails to recognize the incredible significance and paradigm shift presently before us. We have been working closely with a couple of the largest cloud infrastructure providers, Microsoft and Amazon to understand how businesses can gain massive and immediate gains by moving to the cloud. If you haven't had a chance, go take a look at some of Microsoft's new messaging - "We're all in." and "Microsoft Cloud Services" are not to be taken lightly. If you aren't looking at this now and bringing this to your management/executive team or clients, somebody else will be. Of course, we would be happy to discuss this with you in as much detail as you like - contact us and we'll setup a call or meeting to see how you might be able to benefit from the cloud.

We expect that this transformation will be profound, some might say earth shattering to the world of IT. It may not have sunk in yet, or you may not have heard this, but 80% of Microsoft's R&D budget for fiscal 2011 is dedicated into cloud computing initiatives. Last year's R&D budget was around $9 billion, meaning Microsoft may spend $7.2 billion on developing their cloud offerings. I, for one, am extremely pleased to hear that and feel that it's time to open up our minds and embrace this exciting time in the world of technology. As a Vancouver-based managed services provider, we embrace the future of the cloud - not only with what Microsoft has to offer but the integrated and federated clouds we expect to see in the future. We truly ain't seen nothing yet!

Microsoft Cloud Services - www.microsoft.com/cloud