The "Cloud", It Just Makes Your Life Easier
I've just been through a report, Customer Perspectives on the Real Benefits Delivered by Google Apps, from Google outlining why their/our* customers have moved to the "cloud" (in this case Google Apps) and the benefits therein. And, of course, there's a lot of "Google is awesome" in the report and no, "We tried but it didn't work for us", but what do you expect.
* [Disclaimer] I work for Cloud Sherpas and Google recently named Cloud Sherpas their number one enterprise partner.
My overwhelming thought as I read the client comments is that using the "cloud" (subscribed services and your data delivered to you via any web browser/device) has, at it's most basic level, made life easier. The hurdles normal people doing their every day-to-day jobs are going away. Technology is becoming a silent partner that just works - a cause I put my money behind with the old WaveAdept tag line of, "Making IT invisible".
Here's an example from Mark Thiessen, Staff Photographer at National Geographic Society:
It's not that Mark Thiessen is doing anything different in his actual job (ie, what National Geographic Society pay him to do) but that his ability to get on and do it has simply got easier. He can now concentrate on the actual job and less about the admin, the logistics, the "computer stuff".
Some people have called this the 'Apple-isation' of computing with Apple's seemingly laser like focus upon usability and drive to illicit the response "it just works". Apple have certainly reframed the interface and the usability of apps but I am of the view that it came from such a low level that merely having things work would've made them seem like gods (if you've worked in any company for more than 5 years you'll know what I'm talking about, SAP anyone?) - remember this from 2008
But yeah, Apple's iOS has/is certainly raising the bar on the interface BUT it's not been Apple that's made it easy to work together (iCloud will go the way of Ping and stay firmly in the hands of the "I will only use Apple product" crowd). The removing of all that previous work crap has come from the Web companies - Google, Alfresco, Zoho and the like - these are the companies working towards removing the barriers of working together and, like words, we ALWAYS work together.
What saddens me is that there are still a large proportion of Kiwi IT workers that sit in the old world and are rolling out the same old same old barriers to take-up - I see them as deliberately standing in the way of letting real people getting on with their work and they should be held accountable for doing so.
The "cloud", it just makes your life easier ...
And those fine folk at Webstock know why your life should be easier ...
* [Disclaimer] I work for Cloud Sherpas and Google recently named Cloud Sherpas their number one enterprise partner.
My overwhelming thought as I read the client comments is that using the "cloud" (subscribed services and your data delivered to you via any web browser/device) has, at it's most basic level, made life easier. The hurdles normal people doing their every day-to-day jobs are going away. Technology is becoming a silent partner that just works - a cause I put my money behind with the old WaveAdept tag line of, "Making IT invisible".
Here's an example from Mark Thiessen, Staff Photographer at National Geographic Society:
".. a constantly evolving single document that we can all update in real-time from any location in the world, with any
device (laptop, notebook or desktop computer, smartphone or tablet). Gone are the days of emailing around the latest version of a coverage plan document only to have everyone ‘add a little something,’ creating a headache for all of us. Google Docs has made this inefficient circle of version confusion disappear forever.”
It's not that Mark Thiessen is doing anything different in his actual job (ie, what National Geographic Society pay him to do) but that his ability to get on and do it has simply got easier. He can now concentrate on the actual job and less about the admin, the logistics, the "computer stuff".
Some people have called this the 'Apple-isation' of computing with Apple's seemingly laser like focus upon usability and drive to illicit the response "it just works". Apple have certainly reframed the interface and the usability of apps but I am of the view that it came from such a low level that merely having things work would've made them seem like gods (if you've worked in any company for more than 5 years you'll know what I'm talking about, SAP anyone?) - remember this from 2008
But yeah, Apple's iOS has/is certainly raising the bar on the interface BUT it's not been Apple that's made it easy to work together (iCloud will go the way of Ping and stay firmly in the hands of the "I will only use Apple product" crowd). The removing of all that previous work crap has come from the Web companies - Google, Alfresco, Zoho and the like - these are the companies working towards removing the barriers of working together and, like words, we ALWAYS work together.
What saddens me is that there are still a large proportion of Kiwi IT workers that sit in the old world and are rolling out the same old same old barriers to take-up - I see them as deliberately standing in the way of letting real people getting on with their work and they should be held accountable for doing so.
The "cloud", it just makes your life easier ...
- ... working together
- ... wherever you are
- ... using whatever device you want
- ... on the move
And those fine folk at Webstock know why your life should be easier ...
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