Will economic downturn push companies into the cloud?

March 2, 2009, 4:14pm PST | Length: 00:01:48
At the TechCrunch Cloud Computing Roundtable in Mountain View, Calif., Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, explains why he thinks Microsoft's entry into the business will bring validation to the cloud. Many CTOs, he says, still need to be convinced that using software as a service will save them money and move their companies toward the future. Moderator: Steve Gillmor, editor of TechCrunchIT.

Transcript

Will economic downturn push companies into the cloud?

>> Mark, what is the impact of Microsoft getting into the Cloud?

>> Mark: Well I think the most important thing is the validation I think that that's, you know, we want that message specifically to CIO's. As I was saying earlier the people in this room and the people at this table, you know, are sold the people who are not sold are the thousands of corporate CIO's who are still buying a lot of hardware, software and building their own data centers. And the thing that's interesting right now we haven't talked about the economy at all but as we are now in a highly capital constrained economy these CIO's are basically have no capecs assumed spelling their capecs budgets are cut and their fundamental innovation budgets are being held hostage by these kind of enterprise software maintenance dreams that I mentioned. So the opportunity right now is to clearly highlight to them that they need to move into an offex assumed spelling world which is a world of Cloud services and that Microsoft can validate not to buy software is really significant because it sets up the short list in a different way. So instead of going and buying Dot Net and Sequel Server, instead of buying Visual Studio, instead of going and buying your BA application server and your Oracle database and your DB2 and your Lotus Notes and I know that Eriks thinks that we've won but the reality is that's still the vast majority of enterprise buying 99% is still those products. The shift needs to be for those CIO's to realize oh, there's these other things that are now available and at a level of quality and capability.

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==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Techologies ====

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Talkback Most Recent of 4 Talkback(s)

  • ZDNet Gravatar
    No More Microsoft Software Ever!
    3rd Mar 2009
  • RE: Will economic downturn push companies into the cloud?
    God, if everyone stored their stuff on CENTRAL CLOUD 1-and it
    ran Windows-say goodbye to all personal and proprietary info
    inside of 10 minutes;
    LOL! Pure Blasphemy:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvskEGWMLp4
    ZDNet Gravatar
    gennx30
    28th Mar 2009
  • simple equations
    Economic downturn = less money.
    Less money = need less employees.
    Less employees = save money.
    Save money = use the cloud instead.
    Use the cloud instead + less employees = less knowledge.
    Less knowledge = more risk.
    More risk = negotiate discount or better SLAs. (meh!)
    Better SLAs = more leverage with lawyers when you company goes down the pan.

    Enjoy your cloud experience. MS, google et al (cloud suppliers), will simply laugh behind your back. THis cloud has a silver ting in it and it's not called a lining - it's called the 20oz hammer that smacks you between the eyes; you may be lucky and end up in hospital.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    muzza2005
    16th Jun 2009
  • No simpler & MS long time in cloud
    MS is not new to the cloud. This is just the MS launch of the new level of MS cloudware products. Yeah the cloudware is open to a larger customer base each time and MS is getting pretty close to waht they think is an everyone solution.

    No new SIMPLICITY. ROI has been the first marketing presentation point in the MS power point slide show for 10-15 years. Bad economics may put a little more emphasis on ROI than better data exploitation and interconnection with customers...

    However, the BIGGEST questions for cloud computing remain: (1) total dependence on sometimes flaky Internet backbone (no Internet and you can do little to nothing even if phones or production are still otherwise working); (2) control of data (especially federal privacy regulations and loss customizable security vs hacking); (3) limitations on level of service efforts (loss of ability to incrementally spend more money to get faster fixes and 3rd party consultations); and (4) loss of efficient custom business programming (limited selection of business suites -- 1-3 size must fit all.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    wellduh
    18th Jun 2009

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