CIO Attitudes to managed and cloud services

Following on my earlier post on the Cloud Hype cycle, a new report from Data Monitor (commissioned by BT) finds that 57% of CIOs are still not comfortable with running applications and storing corporate data on computing environments based outside their country. I wonder if this is just about geography or if it’s actually about computer environments outside of their direct control and domain.

There is no doubt we are on the Cloud Computing Hype-cycle, and we have some way to go, including a sojourn through the "trough of disillusionment", before we reach the "plateau of productivity". No doubt we have some way to go before this consumption model hits main street with many issues around security, standardization and reliability needing to be solved first. (note - if you get a chance, get "The Big Switch" by Nicolas Carr - this draws the interesting analogy between the Electricity Generation at the turn of the 20th century and today’s nascent cloud computing market)

We have seen this before with the Web Hosting market in the mid 90's. Many IT departments, with no viable alternative, implemented and managed their web infrastructures themselves. IT managers in SMB's were running T1's to their building and clustering a couple of Compaq servers to host their web / e-commerce presence. As the Web hosting market emerged and matured, these requirements were increasingly out tasked. Today - the web hosting market is as mature as it is commoditized, and out tasking this IT function is the norm rather than the exception. Inevitably, the same is going to happen for Cloud Computing and Storage offerings. However, as with web hosting, a level of natural offer and market maturation will need to take place before these services cross Moore’s Chasm into main street. MSP product managers need to build this reality into their hockey stick revenue assumptions. I am not saying that it won't be a "hockey stick" - we just need some realism on how soon the exponential upturn in revenue is likely to happen