Originally posted on the IT trouble? Cognito it blog.

After attending yet another Cloud Computing Conference, where I had the chance to interact with various IT professionals on this high focus subject, I felt more or less that the same questions are getting asked over and over again.

• Is Cloud just a fad?
• How secure is the Cloud?
• But I don't want to put my data on the Cloud, now what?
• The Cloud's not for me because I have enough servers and computing power.

I can't attempt to answer all the questions in one go, but I wanted to talk about something that most (at least in the regional Cloud Computing talks I've been to so far) don't seem to fully address.

First, Cloud Computing is nothing new at all - only its use in mainsteam IT is (I use IT here to refer to IT departments). Hotmail was founded way back in 1996, and search engines (which can be considered applications running in the Cloud) were around since before then. Today, however, Cloud Computing has reached a stage where it is easily and readily available to every Tom, Dick and Harry. And you can be up and running in about 5 minutes!

Sadly, most of the standard Cloud Computing talks focus around Computing Power - something that is also known as Infrastructure-as-a-Service. IaaS means that you purchase infrastructure, or computing power to augment (or in some cases, replace) your in-house setup, or lack thereof. But there are more aspects to Cloud Computing: Platform-as-a-Service and Software-as-a-Service. I'll talk a bit more about the latter.

Software-as-a-Service is an offering that can be traced as far back to the late 90's, where a provider delivered his software from his datacenter, rather than on each customer's site. Today, this has taken phenomenal proportions - with everything from e-mail to CRMs and ERPs to games and you-name-its available in the 'cloud.'

Here's what I want to highlight: the real advantage of using SaaS and Cloud Computing in general, is not about its cost. It's about what I call the symbiosis between IT and business. Call it what you want really, but today IT is a tool for business to get better, faster. And any IT that bogs the business down - and most IT does - should be seriously looked at, and fixed.

SaaS brings a different ball-game to the table. Instead of having internal IT teams spend 80%-100% of the time 'keeping the lights on' - performing daily/routine tasks that cover support, maintenance and pure troubleshooting - it is time IT teams moved to strategic initiatives - tasks that help improve business efficiency, such as looking after the setup of new offices, or bringing in and deploying a new technology that makes everyone work better - or enabling the business to reach new heights rather than firefighting.

Someone recently told me that he cannot fathom why organizations would want to manage their e-mail in-house. I know not everyone agrees with that (and why), but I also know that most CIOs and IT Managers around the world are plagued by how much time and money goes into managing e-mail servers. An Osterman Research study in March 2010 estimated that an organization of less than 10 users spends US$3,809 per user per year towards e-mail, while one with 1,000 users spends US$290 pear. Compare that to the Google Apps cost of US$50 for all of the same features (and more, since the Google Docs suite is included in that price). Now suddenly, by paying signicantly lesser (think $50,000 vs $290,000 per year), a CIO or IT Manager has achieved something s/he could not do before: put the value of his/her IT administrator ($160,000 a year as cost + true skills of the engineer itself) devoted to making sure the business is moving forward. That's the value-add.

This is just a sample example and by no means a one-size fits all situation. But it goes to show how SaaS can possibly make a significant change in how symbiotic the relationship is between your IT and business.

The discussion whether the Cloud is right for you or not is neverending. But it's important to understand that the Cloud is more than just about putting your computing power on the internet.