By Brad Peters, Contributor Thanks to the extraordinary attention given to Big Data in recent months, the infrastructure that powers this process – cloud computing – has become the hottest technology around. Moreover, it is a technology wave that has a vast potential to completely change the way we work. But it’s also at a fragile stage where decisions made today will be cemented and amplified in the future. And therein lies the problem. One of the great unwritten histories of the tech revolution is how hot new industries, prospected by innovative young companies, get hijacked by established companies that merely re-label what they already have to confuse the issue and then triumph through marketing muscle. It is a story that goes all of the way back to minicomputers . . . and, unfortunately, has now struck the world of cloud computing. Thus, even as it is enjoying unprecedented attention and success, cloud computing is beginning to face the temptations of the old ways, and as a result, put the long term brand at risk. And so, while this column should be a celebration of the success of an exciting new industry, it is instead – unfortunately – a cautionary tale. If you follow this column, you know how the biggest company in enterprise software, Oracle Corp., has bought up a number of interesting young cloud companies, created a portfolio that it has no intention of upgrading, and then declared itself a major player in cloud computing. The actual performance of these new units are difficult to verify now that they are hidden by the accounting veil of Oracle, but it’s clear that the scale of Oracle’s customer reach will be the main attraction. It’s also not clear whether the talent in these organizations will remain or how if at all these properties will be stitched together. Moreover, these companies are tiny in comparison to the overall Oracle beast, and it’s doubtful that they will have any impact on the organization’s culture, character, or DNA. It’s likely another buzzword in the Oracle pantheon. As the cloud matures, there are going to be similar temptations to drive down this path. Salesforce.com, the founder and leader of the SaaS movement, built its reputation on providing customers “Success, not Software”. That focus on driving customer value via a new business and deployment model helped fuel the early days of Cloud computing and established a customer-focused ethos that is still present in most Cloud companies. Salesforce.com is now at an interesting crossroads and how it proceeds will tell us all a great deal about the future of Cloud computing. As a public company, Salesforce.com is under pressure to continue its remarkable growth. This is intensified by the pressure not just from Oracle who claims cloud supremacy, but also SAP and Microsoft. Each of these behemoths has done its own acquisitions and, in combination, they are building intense pressure on others to do so as well. The challenge is that sustaining growth and innovation through acquisition is good when the goal is to address real customer problems but not when the goal is the more cynical goal of merely selling yet another product through an existing sales channel to an existing customer base. It is hard to determine how profitable Salesforce.com’s recent acquisitions of Buddy Media and Radian6 have been for the company – and its promotion of its non-GAAP numbers don’t help matters here – but, the goal in both cases seems to be enhancing its customers’ experience and not a cynical fleecing of the customer base. It is important that, as Salesforce.com continues to make strategic acquisitions, it maintains that focus on customer success and does not succumb to the temptation to merely drive revenue growth by cross-selling its existing customers. As a big Salesforce.com customer for both Sales and Service Cloud, I obviously hope the company stays focused on delivering success to its customers. I also hope that, while Salesforce.com is clearly a great marketing company, it continues to resist the temptation to rely on that marketing muscle alone to drive growth (like Oracle and SAP) instead of continuing to focus on product and service excellence. If the broader Cloud community can sustain that customer-centric view despite the growing competitive and financial pressures, I predict continued growth and adoption for the platform. However, if not, what looks like a cloud could, in fact, be merely a puff of smoke.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest