Cloud has a silver lining for future of business

Feb 4 2010 by Chris Knox, The Journal

Andy MacLellan, regional director of Middlesbrough-based Onyx Group, which provides much of the infrastructure that enables software companies to create a cloud, said: “Although it is a relatively new technology, it is beginning to be regarded as the future of business computing.

“By having their systems hosted remotely, companies will be able to benefit from the latest updates without the need for a significant up-front investment.

“It will certainly mean less work for traditional IT departments, which will be relied upon less and less the more business and software developers begin to utilise the cloud model.

“Seminars such as this will become more and more popular and people start to notice the impact of cloud computing among their competitors.”

However, Newcastle-based Arjuna which hosted the seminar and is developing cloud computing platform Agility, believes the future of computing will take a more hybrid approach, with traditional technicians still on hand to deal with everyday problems.

Speaking at the seminar, Arjuna managing director and founder Steve Caughey, said: “People have been using ‘cloud’ services for some time now, with software such as iTunes and Google Mail representing the norm now for a lot of people.

“I believe the future of computing will see the IT department work hand- in-hand with cloud providers, ensuring that staff are able to decide which updates are best for them, as well as helping them to get the best from the cloud. What is clear is that having a cloud can make a company far more agile, allowing them to make faster decisions based on constantly improving IT resources.”

Newcastle-based business software giant Sage is also looking to move many of its services online, which will enable users to access its very latest software at the click of a button.

The firm already has more than 25,000 customers using its online payment programme SagePay, via a cloud model, as well as other services in Canada, Germany, South Africa and Spain.

Mike Goodwin, senior architect at Sage, said: “The move towards software as a service is still in its infancy and we are still in talks with other cloud providers to see how we can develop our offering. However, we see the high levels of customisation cloud computing offers as a real cause for excitement and was something we wanted to get across at the seminar.”