But some aspects did strike me:
Two Types of Providers
There are two types of providers – those that look at their service from a customer perspective, and those that don’t.
Aspects like making it easy to leave to make it easier to join, through data export or no minimum commitment. Or by producing a “customer charter” - though beware the title matches the content!
Cloud or Outsourcing
The largest cloud-based system in the world, for HR, sounded very little different from any other form of outsourcing agreement. There are weekly meetings between provider and customer, and I suspect dedicated servers not the multi-tenanted systems usually provided. It also wasn't clear whether access was via the public interent or some private connection, as is common with other types of hosted HR and payroll apps.
That’s a very different situation from a typical cloud user, who may have little if any influence on the way the service runs.
Commercial Business Models
The majority of exhibitors were companies formed specifically to develop and market a SaaS cloud app. The main exception was Microsoft which has recently decided to embrace the cloud before someone else does it for them.
Other on-premise vendors who have cloud offerings were not there promoting them, reflecting their approach in other situations. The cloud business model is not especially attractive to on-premise vendors, and I fear is a major barrier to development and promotion of cloud offerings. Is the cloud too cheap?
Risks and Rewards
One of the industry representatives said the cloud “brings new risks and rewards”. Some of the new pitfalls and risks we’ve discussed in earlier articles.
Clearly cloud providers are no different from any other IT vendors in telling you all the benefits, but little if any of the issues. Choosing a cloud provider is certainly as much a minefield as on-premise. It’s best to be well advised.
If you’d like to discuss any aspect of this please contact me – details to the left.
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