Cross posted from the Cloudability blog

I spend my life doing a bunch of different things – but whether I’m investing, commentating on the technology industry, advising a startup or consulting to a large vendor, there are some common threads at play.

My core thesis is that technology in general, and cloud computing in all its various forms in particular, can make a difference for organizations – make them more competitive, more agile, more profitable than they would be otherwise.

Sometimes, though, businesses are so busy working on their day to day stuff that they don’t have the opportunity to really dig in and see what a new technology can do for them – they need some help, some handholding and an easy guide to what’s involved.

Over the next two months, I’m going to be running a mini series om the Cloudability blog talking about the barriers to greater cloud adoption.

But, for this first post, I’d like to start with a little context – why is cloud such a big deal? And is it simply the same old stuff we’ve seen before?

Well, cloud is such a big deal because it takes some technology that was around before in various forms and applies it to an entirely new business model allowing for lower barriers-to-entry and faster rates of innovation.

A good case in point, virtualization, or the ability for one physical server to take the role of several virtual servers. In this way a little metal box somewhere can be dealing with my Amazon purchase, streaming a Netflix video and controlling a Zynga game – all at the same time.

Nothing too revolutionary in that, but add it to some of the business changes occurring – like the fact that I can “rent” that server by the hour or whatever and you have some exciting changes. All of a sudden a startup can get set up with almost zero cash – spin up a few servers, cut some code and put something out to the world to see whether it takes off.

But apart from this increased speed, cloud is also powering a bunch of changes in our business (and personal for that matter) lives. The demand for mobile access to information? It’s coming down to you from the cloud. Want to be able to work with a team spread all around the world?

Likely it’s a cloud solution that makes that easier. Want to forget about having to back up data and simply have your stuff available anywhere and everywhere – cheaply and safely? It’s going to be a cloud tool that does it for you.

Cloud democratizes IT – it means anybody can get the sort of stuff that previously only the largest enterprises could get a hold of – and that changes things significantly. So with that explained – what are the barriers to this amazing technology change getting wider adoption?

Check back next week for the next post in the series, “Cloud isn’t just a gimmick”.


Want to learn more about the top 8 barriers to cloud adoption and what you can do to overcome them? Download our new white paper, “Cloud Adoption – Barriers, Roadblocks and Belligerence”.

Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

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