General Consultant Discussion

Wow, the 2nd time in two weeks a major publication refutes the automatic assumption that the cloud is the 2nd coming of the messiah... And I still disagree with the Dell Dude at the end. There will eventually be a slowdown of vendors creating new cloud solutions as the market gets saturated and investor funds start drying up http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2013/04/29/do-you-replace-your-server-or-go-to-the-cloud-the-answer-may-surprise-you/

Interesting, its actually the same author as the last article, but with a completely different article. And I still agree with him

I also agree with the conclusion based upon today's cost. However, I also agree that over time, costs will continue to come down and more and more will move to the cloud. We have moved to Office 365 at work. We use a number of other tools that are cloud based that are invaluable to our day to day business. I am constantly looking to find ways to move more to the cloud, especially my phone service and data storage. If I can get these two things moved while maintaining acceptable quality of service from the VOIP option and HIPPA compliant security on the file storage, I will have a much more resilient environment internally. My staff will be able to work from anywhere that has power and internet connectivity. Just go through a couple power outages, each lasting a day or two. The importance of resiliency will become crystal clear. Living in Oklahoma, we have winds in the Spring and Summer along with ice in the Winter. Up until now, our office has been lucky. We've only been without power twice in last15 years. However, I can think of a least 10 different times power has been out in major parts of the city or state. I can't keep counting on luck.

Cloud doesn't necessarily help power outages. If you are in an office and the power goes out, the cloud is as useless as your down servers. Now if everybody goes home and then works in the cloud and home hasn't been affected by a power outage that's an option. That being said, depending on space and needs, $8,000 can buy you a natural gas generator that eliminates the power issue alltogether and is a one time cost versus paying thousands extra per year for ever for cloud. In addition, shameless plug, just use www.eversafe-backup.com and that solves the power issue by using the cloud only when needed and you don't to pay for 365 days of cloud when you only need a few days if you have a bad power grid. Also, internet outages are often more common than power or server failures. If you are in the cluod and have an office, you all are twiddling your thumbs when your internet connection goes down. Again, take a look at this page http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/pricing/ Look at 'windows sql standard' that would be your ERP 100 server. Then add in servers for domain controllers, file servers, and any other servers you currently have on premise. Add in bandwidth charges, file backup charges and image backup charges. These prices don't include managed services (they have another page for that and its like 60% higher) so you still need your own IT to manage this stuff. Show me how this over 5 years comes remotely close to inhouse with a virtual server. Heck, show me how in the first year its even competitive. I just don't see the numbers. What am I missing? You still need a firewall, you still need internet and security, you still need switches, routers hubs, printers, scanners and wifi if you have a physical office. And in most cases, unless you are exclusively using thin terminals, and most want laptops etc, you still need local desktop support

This puppy, fully loaded is about $9k. We run 7 live servers and 2 test servers on it and it never breathes hard and doesn't have SSD hard drives and it has never once hiccuped (even though we obviously have a www.eversafe-backup.com Business Continuity solution linked to it to ensure 0 downtime) http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/hardware/rack/x3550m4/index.html It should be top notch performance. Also do these cloud companies guarantee they will continually upgrade their host servers to new hardware at the same rate you would assume you would do in house? Many get big initial injections of VC money to build out their data center, and then later choose to invest in marketing & sales instead of hardware

@ShawnSlavin why would you be storing HIPPA applicable data in your office. Do you maintain protected patient data? Have you AND your cloud file storage company signed BAA's?

@MarkChinsky as with most things, there are lots of ways to address disaster recovery. We have a plan for those resources that are housed internally. However, where I can do so in a cost effective manner, I want to move to the cloud. HIPPA isn't necessarily required but we do ALOT of payroll work. That means I have copies of customer data files at times that include SSN's, and other information that I need to ensure stay secure. Defining our security objectives in terms of HIPPA makes it easier to communicate with a storage vendor. Regarding generators, in-house mirrors vs off-site images, recovery times, recovery points, communication plans, temporary facilities, and all the little details of a full disaster recovery plan; I would be happy to participate in a lively debate over drinks in San Diego. I'll buy the first round!

Would be happy to! I like the stuff on the top shelf :)

Remind me of that at the bar and I will share a story from a trip to Wisconsin and a bottle of Patron.

I'm a Cloud contrarian like @MarkChinsky but one thing that I have come to realize: My team and I really hate installing the software. It's such a bunch of low value, crap work that takes more time than it needs. And we always have to wrangle two or three other people and sometimes outside IT consultants. On top of that, once it's installed ... inevitably down the road, someone will auto-update Windows or outright update to the latest Windows version without checking compatibility and the whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket and we get a call screaming ""Our CRM isn't working! Fix it!"" From a completely selfish standpoint, I am looking forward to the days when Sage CRM Cloud can work with Sage ERP On Premise.

If you use www.eversafe-backup.com , you could just 'roll back' the windows update (assuming this is server), and then address the problem at your leisure. If its a workstation update, the cloud won't fix that

And the offset to the installation issue (which is billable usually), is the time spent trying to get a cloud vendor to change their firewall or other configurations to allow for an integration from some other premise or other cloud solution such as some type of tablet application. Our texas office just had a 75 user dynamics AX system rip out from the cloud due to the slowness it took to get the hosting company (who specializes in hosting AX) to make necessary changes and limitations imposed. They bought an EverSafe! unit to maintain the Business Continuity advantage they thought they were getting in the cloud, and their TCO is going to be much lower overall

It's not the billable vs non-billable issue. It's the value-add issue. Flipping disks and installing software is a low value activity.

BTW ... Gene Marks is a Dynamics CRM consultant. He makes zero to no money on Cloud implementations. There is a bias here.

Microsoft is pushing HARD for everything to go cloud or subscription. Dynamics CRM is just as available in the cloud or on premise. There is nothing he mentioned that was factually inaccurate that I can tell. BTW, you won't be able to buy MS Office on a non-subscription license after 2014. It's not because the cloud is so wonder for customers, it because microsoft want to lock in annual cash flow and not have to upsell and worry about people buying new versions with little functional improvement

They are also wiping out virtually all 'free' licenses like Action Pack, MSDN etc. The company can't invent anything new so they are going to twist the screws on their client base. SOunds just like sage

I agree that MS is pushing for the Cloud and frankly I am suspicious about the ""AMAZING VALUE"" of the cloud. I think it's stupid. The real reason the Cloud gets attention is because Salesforce led the way. The thing that people always forget about Salesforce is that it wasn't the Cloud technology that accelerated their growth, it was the fact that they disrupted standard buying cycles. They allowed VP of Sales and Sales Managers to get sales software without going through the accounting and IT groups. Now that they have a customer base, people are back-filling the story to make it seem like their technology was the reason for their success. Nope. Not true at all.

@PeterWolf I think you are right about Salesforce, but also because that is a specific sector that can benefit greatly from a system built for mobile at inception. ERP is a way different beast in that regards.

I agree with that point. The value of Cloud for CRM is marginal and the value of Cloud for ERP is downright dubious in my mind except for a certain segment. In the meantime though, there is business to be made in the cloud for a lot of dedicated folks who can position it right. Because the Social Proof is saying that everyone should be doing it.

Parts of the dialog I read above I agree with. I don't believe that the move to the cloud is a one size fits all solution. On the other hand, as a user of Office 365, to say that nothing is new in office is incorrect; at least in my mind. Having deployed office 365, the ability to deploy SharePoint without having to birth, feed, and nurture another server is significant. There's no way I would do that internally. Not worth the effort. Now that it's available though, I'm taking advantage of it. I can set up project sub sites and invite an unlimited number of customers to connect, free of charge. Nada. Zilch. Since I can have up to 1,000 sub sites, I can have one for each project. That means I can share files, set shared calendars, have discussions, and set tasks that have a bi-directional sync to outlook, all without any additional out-of-pocket. I can also open up Lync to those customers on support who are also on Office 365. Now I can chat, video chat, and do remote desktop support; also without any additional costs. And guess what, all the tools work together. Combine that with SkyDrive Pro and now I have a 25 gb dropbox that works natively with Office, whether I work with a local copy of a cloud copy of office. If 25 GB isn't enough, I can buy more for $.20 per GB. To say that nothing new is included in Office is arguable if you're only looking at spreadsheet functionality. If you're ready for a paradigm shift, it's has a not that's new. I think all this is about paradigm shifts. Moving to the cloud is coming, like it or not. I don't think everything will move for everyone but if I look at where thing are today vs 10 years ago and then project that out another 10 years, there's no way this change isn't happening. As General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U. S. Army once said: If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less.

You can have any opinion on the cloud you want and it will be right. IMHO, I love cloud. I run my business in the cloud and my business is thriving in the cloud. We still sell more software on-premise than cloud, but the percentage cloud is still increasing. We also get a large number of unhappy customers from their on-premise systems and make them very happy by taking away one more thing that they used to have to do.

I don't know. I've been exposed to Sharepoint time and time again and still have to see a problem it really solves that isn't handled better by some other vertically focused solution. It seems like a juggler of many and master of none and more of a development toolkit that runs kinda klunky Almost nobody uses Lync. If they replaced lync with Skype, and fixed some issues with skype, there might be possibilities there. But after 18 months Skype doesn't even have the Microsoft logo on it anywhere, unless deep down they feel they've developed such an 'uncool' image, it would be detrimental.

Afterall, if sharepoint was so good, we'd be using it instead of Socialcast. FYI, look over on the left. See the 'projects' button? Looks to do most of what you'd have people doing with Sharepoint in addition to a massively better threaded comment system

Adding on the Mark's thoughts ... I prefer CRM to manage projects. We have a custom Project Management solution and it's fully integrated with our other client activities so we don't have to go to multiple places. It also feeds tasks to Google Calendar so the team can be up to date even if they aren't connected to CRM. I do agree that the Cloud is here to stay for the forseeable future. It's just not for everyone.

Socialcast is like cloud. They have taken all the configuration and MS Stack out of SharePoint and made it easy for users like us. It is much more restricted, but we accept that as the price we pay for easy.

I just think that many companies will start seeing monthly bills that are $x/user here, $x/user there and realize when they add it up, it starts killing them.

Socialcast is restricted in terms of customization, but far more feature rich in terms of the areas it does cover. Sharepoint reminds me of a BBS from the 1980's with a new UI slapped on it.

My impression of SharePoint is that it's somewhat fragile - meaning that you have to create all sorts of static structures for different sites. I can barely keep my website with 30 pages up-to-date so I shudder thinking about creating micro-sites for all my clients and projects. Can someone tell me if my fears are off-base or on target? (Kind of on a tangent now)

Speaking of which, I haven't tried breaking your website in a while.

Let's keep it that way. I have enough on my to-do list...