Netrics HD

“The Cloud” buzz continues to grow and will certainly be one of the most talked about topics in 2009. In fact, it’s probably already on the top 10 list for 2008 – a quick Google search shows nine million matches for “cloud computing.”

I think it’s interesting to look at first wave of changes that The Cloud will bring. As more and more relatively low-value but important IT services are delivered by SaaS providers, internal IT resources will be better able to focus on higher value projects: dealing with business transformation, working on effectiveness and efficiency projects and, of course, trying once more to deal effectively with increasingly high mountains of imperfect data.

What are some examples that are already happening? CRM and corporate email immediately jump to mind. Both are critical to organizations but at the same time both are being commoditized by The Cloud.

Case in point, Netrics – both our CRM (Salesforce.com) and our corporate email (Microsoft Exchange Server) are handled for us by outside vendors. At a fraction of what it would cost us to do it – and if allows us to better allocate our technical resources – keeping them focused on enhancing and improving our products!