The Cloud Cometh

We all know it is coming, the next big disruptive change for how business IT functions. Call it Web 2.0, applications as a service, virtual data centers, hosted services, or anything you want – the word “cloud” sums it all up. And cloud = change.

Many CTOs have spent sleepless nights wondering how the cloud will disrupt their tidy IT operations and what the cloud will really mean to their business processes. Luckily, cloud services reek of potential profits and service revenue for IT service providers creating an ecosystem of support and delivery mechanisms managed by the good old-fashioned value added reseller (VAR), or “solution provider” in today’s nomenclature. That bodes well for the frazzled CTO, who now has a highly competitive community to turn to for advice and, ultimately, deployment.

In other words, let someone else worry about it and reap the benefits of their trials and tribulations.

Cloud services vendors are turning to solution providers to promote and resell their services, with one goal in mind – put the cloud everywhere and anywhere – sort of a “build it and they will come” approach, which relies on VARs to do the heavy lifting as they forage for customers and revenue. Those same vendors are looking to get a piece of a very big cloud pie, something that research firm Gartner predicts could grow into a $150 billion market by 2013.

Leading the charge into the cloud market are IT distributors such as Avnet, which is looking to build an army of partners to bring the cloud to the people with the “cloudready” initiative. According to Avnet, the company created CloudReady to help educate partners on the market opportunities and challenges, realize the benefits of a recurring revenue model, enhance cloud computing capabilities and navigate the rapidly changing cloud market.

Avnet also says the CloudReady initiative exemplifies how Avnet’s SolutionsPath methodology reduces its partners’ time to market, investments and risks when pursuing new high-growth and market opportunities. Since cloud computing is an IT delivery model, CloudReady was developed as a specialization area within SolutionsPath that supports all of Avnet’s existing solutions practices to provide partners with an alternative way to deliver data center solutions for networking, security, storage and virtualization, as well as healthcare and government customers. Initially, CloudReady includes executive education, financing solutions, technical training, professional services and integrated cloud computing solutions.

But the real question here is what does this mean to CTOs running corporate IT? The answer is surprisingly simple -- CTOs will have access to hundreds or even thousands of highly trained and motivated organizations looking to push cloud solutions. So, thanks to Avnet, embracing the cloud may become a whole lot easier, and a $150 billion market may well come into being.

The lesson here is “the cloud is coming and you won’t be able to stop it," so don’t even try – hop on board and let the VARs do the work, saving time, effort and money.