Monday – I’m looking back onto three days of CeBIT and ask myself what I was able to take with me. And yes, besides numerous conversations with providers and users, I participated in some interesting events and discussion rounds. However, what stuck most notably of all was the skepticism about one of this year´s leading themes at CeBIT – the ‘Cloud‘.
The growing acceptance of ‘this‘ cloud in Germany, that one or the other provider willingly emphasizes, is doubtless true for large enterprises. Nonetheless, apparently there still seems to be considerable mistrust among small firms and medium-sized enterprises. Not only the Financial Times Germany recently described in an article, headlined drastically ‘The cloud of horror‘, the ruling distrust among small and medium-sized businesses, but also the German Handelsblatt in a current piece. Both articles dealt predominantly with aspects of trust, transparency and security. And without any doubt, these topics are essential for an increasing adoption.
In addition, during my conversations I became once again very aware of a well-known problem – the communication between providers and users. Both providers and users declared in my conversations during CeBIT that, if the topic ‘Cloud‘ comes up, it would be dismissed, but if an alternative provision of known features is discussed, a willingness of talk would exist – how come? For me this is no real surprise!
Admittedly, I have never been a fan of the term ‘Cloud‘. Why? Quite simply – even though several same underlying characteristics can be assigned to that word ‘Cloud‘, this term generalizes various services offerings to something intangible. For example, I do not want to store my data in ‘the‘ cloud, nor do I want to run my business applications in ‘the‘ cloud. However, I gladly use a dedicated services provided in an alternative way to store my data and benefit of the advantages, as well as dedicated services for one or the other business application, provided that transparent terms and conditions are in place. And that’s literally what is all about – tangible services that an enterprise can procure in an alternative manner – and either software as a Service (SaaS), a platform or an infrastructure as a service (PaaS, IaaS) or in combination.
So? This commonplace with an ‘umbrella term‘ such as cloud seemed to be adequate at the beginning of that development and might be helpful in cases where a general statement is made helpful. Still, to reduce skepticism and reservation, a rethink of communication – besides the essential topics trust, transparency and security – shall to be found on one´s agenda. I’m quite confident that this would support the ongoing explanatory work.
Subsequently, my recommendation for providers and their marketing is based on my experience and belief:”Call a spade a spade!“
