Verizon Sounds Googley
May 11, 2010
Bad news for information technology professionals. Last week I heard a couple of Googlers complaining about traditional information technology methods. I did not pay much attention because Google does not like too many things that are different from the company’s methods. Then I read “Cloud’s Future Is Not Cloudy: Verizon”. Some of the comments in the write up reminded me of Google and its view of the traditional IT set up. There is a chief information officer, one or more system administrators, assorted engineers, and, of course, consultants. The chief financial officer is often the only person in an organization to know the cost of weekend hot fixes, crash programs, and the upgrades that come like the government agents in the Matrix motion pictures.
Here is a passage I noted. The speaker is a Verizon manager and the subject is cloud computing. Cloud computing is becoming more important due to the cost of keeping traditional enterprise systems alive and well. The quote:
We have to educate our companies to change their mindset,” says Crawford. He says that the computing as a service that Verizon offers is a combination of the customer’s own infrastructure and Verizon’s cloud service. So the investment made on the infrastructure would not go waste. “We have to convince them that they have the flexibility of scaling up and down. Infrastructure as a service is based upon standard hardware and software which runs on dedicated environment. We offer 30 days free trial so that they can test it and be convinced,” he adds.
What is happening is that vendors know more than their clients. IT professionals are obstructions to some degree. I have no doubt that Verizon, like Google, will make headway with their approach. I suppose one should see their view as a spur to the job hunting companies. IT, like librarians, are likely to suffer job erosion and disintermediation in m opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, May 11, 2010
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2 Responses to “Verizon Sounds Googley”
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How much you want to bet that for the consumers “the flexibility of scaling up and down” that the prices will go up and NOT down? 😉
Check Larry Ellison’s opinion on cloud boat computing. (Above link)
I work in IT and there are some of us, who know what a massive waste of resources most IT department really are and they don’t provide a true return on investment. If I were a CIO I would cut the infrastructure and other commodity systems and go with cloud based services. I would focus on increasing the bottom and top line of the organization and anything that didn’t would be cut.