'There Is No Such Thing As A Hybrid IT Landscape'

Lindsey Armstrong, President, International Field Sales, Salesforce.com, gives her take on cloud computing and why it wins hands down against on-premise apps in a quick interaction with Biztech2.com on the sidelines of the Salesforce.com Foundation launch in India.

Many enterprises are still in two minds about going ahead with cloud-based services. What is the best way to instill confidence in them to adopt the cloud?

Globally, we are seeing all the big corporations slowly adopting cloud computing. Some of the names worth mentioning are Symantec, Barclays Bank, Cisco etc. I think the major issue which enterprises have with the cloud are availability and scalability. We see that majority of the players in the cloud computing space are not able to deliver ISO certified applications.

However, gradually, we are seeing a movement towards and trust in the cloud as companies are moving their wealth management applications onto the cloud. If I could quote Gartner’s figures, 70 percent of cloud-based CRM apps have a chance of succeeding vis-à-vis on-premise infrastructure.

Enterprises are more comfortable with a hybrid model of the IT infrastructure. Comment.

Firstly, there is no such thing as a hybrid model for the IT landscape. Either it’s on the cloud or it’s on-premise – there is no middle ground, which you can find. In my opinion, it is all a marketing hype by vendors, who do not have the competencies to deliver cloud-based services. As India is slowly building up its broadband infrastructure, we believe we’ll see more adoption of the cloud, even in low bandwidth penetration areas. In an independent survey, it was found that cloud computing has moved on from No 12 to No 1 on the wish list of CIOs. So cloud computing is here to stay.

Would you agree that cloud-based services are beneficial only for short-term projects?

I would disagree. We have clients, who have been using our services for a decade now. In the long run, paying maintenance is a good idea, but I don’t think that is the real issue. If you look at a cost comparison between cloud computing and on-premise infrastructure, cloud computing wins hands down not only because of cost but also due to time to market. Whereas in the latter, you would pay additionally for peripherals, system integrators, consultancy etc, you could be up and running in a matter of six-eight weeks in cloud computing.