This morning I am on my way up to London to attend a round table debate on a recent survey of 1000 SME's which looked at how they are reacting to the economic downturn, and how its effecting their predicted spend on IT.

I've been reading the briefing document supplied by the PR agency who has organised the event, and I'm really looking forward to talking to the various IT journalists that have been assembled.  The briefing documents focus a lot on what key players within Salesforce have to say about SME's needs, and the benefits Salesforce.com and the cloud platform have to offer. And in preparation I started making a few of my own notes.  It was an early 5.30am start for me, so fueled by quite a lot of coffee and some Wight link ferry toast and Marmite ( praise the heavens for the ferry toast man, an Angel with Breville wings) I've discovered I'm quite passionate about the subject under discussion today.  That passion spilled out from scribbled notes in the margins of the briefing document, and quickly found their way into Google docs where it's just a cut and paste from the usergroup blog.

My question is this...

Who in their right mind wouldn't want to use the cloud for their business applications?

In my opinion you'd have to be stark raving bonkers not to recognise the benefits it brings. ( there, my cards are firmly on the table.  The briefing notes I have been given focus on the fact that it saves money.  I'd agree with that. My own organisation saved a lot of money by employing cloud platforms for our IT needs.  I understand that in the economic climate, an initial money save could be the start of discussions and interest for anyone considering the shift to the cloud...

...But the benefits go way way beyond this in my experience, and I just had to share with someone how and why I feel this. ( and if your reading this blog, you are just the person! thanks in advance:-))

Starting yesterday from a quickly made up "there was an old lady who swallowed a fly" analogy which quickly became nonsensical (.... OK briefly.... it's how I see the old cycle of buying software systems that don't talk well with each other and cost the earth and continually need upgrading at extra cost I spent years feeding all manner of proverbial farm yard animals to an aging  bespoke MS Access database until I discovered the cloud alternative, so I know how painful swallowing a cow really is!) OK. enough of little old ladies... I've settled on a better analogy model inspired by CEO Marc Benioff at Salesforce.com's London conference this year, but without the technical talk... jargon and clip art illustrations, (sorry Marc, I cannot match you on technical and illustrative parts... but thanks for the inspiration)

So here goes...

....Imagine a high rise building where the ground rent is very low and entirely scalable to your needs.  You can buy a square inch or several hundred square miles of office space in this multi tenancy building as you require. It's got elastic walls you see.

...you get to share the building and its infrastructure with some of the smartest and biggest names in industry today. (...don't fret, you don't have to queue with them at the water butt or coffee machine. In fact you wont even really know they are there unless you glance the names and logos on your way through the lobby.) This Building has infrastructure that you couldn't possibly afford on your own, but in this building, because you've staked your claim on that one square inch of space more, you get it all. No extra charges, no installation or connection costs, just consider it all part of the service!

...3rd party infrastructure providers from around the globe are competing to offer you fab and competitive additional infrastructure to further support your possible needs. Some of them are completely free, some of them cost a bit but usually save you even more ( consider them investments not expenses) ( conga merge... Postcode Anywhere... Coda...Google Adwords for Salesforce... Google docs for Salesforce...Vertical Response...lead followup...Event manager...PR Manager... I could go on.... just check out force.com App exchange)

...the infrastructure is... absolutely amazing.  There really isn't much it cannot do. It has to be that way. Thousands of businesses inhabit this space. All of them with different wants and needs.

...The owners overhaul the building at least twice every year.  They also have this service that enables anyone in the building with a good idea or want or need to publish their ideas.  They call it " Ideas". ( a lot of their offerings do what they say in their name. its more simple like that)  Others in the building can vote for ideas they like, and the stuff with the most votes gets done quite promptly. Sometimes small things...sometimes huge set your imagination on fire with potential things. ...Oh and no matter how huge the upgrade, you don't get charged any more money... just the standard rate you all pay for your per square inch of 'unreal' estate.

...in this building you can build and construct your office space any way you like and you don't have to hire contractors to do it for you. ( now if you are short on time, there are plenty of contractors just an email or a phone call away. What they build costs, but it's good.... in my experience... really good. ( thanks Astadia... thanks Westbrook... Thanks Fujitsu...and if I've missed any others, please comment on this post and add your names and contact details to the bottom of this post)

...and all you need to access this building is an Internet connection on any device with a  browser.

... hey it doesn't actually even need to be connected permanently anymore either, as my wightlink ferry trip across the Solent bares testimony:-)

... and you can get to it anywhere in the world (Yep even 2.5 miles off the coast of the Isle of Wight.)

...this building is really really secure and safe, just in case for some bizarre reason or act of god the building falls over, the owners have arranged for complete and utter instant relocation to other identical buildings around the globe for all tenants. It's instant and you wont be aware of it. Magic! really.

... you can allow your customers to get to it and interact with the parts of your business they need to from anywhere in the world, just point them to your website

... and if you are a nonprofit you get ten square inches free of charge. ( the owners really applaud your efforts and do lots to help encourage and support those in the non profit sector. They have a foundation which they are so keen on they donate 1% of all profits, 1% of licenses, and 1% of every employee's time to help good causes and change the world to a better place.)

Sound like the sort of place you'd like to operate / hang out / do business in? ( tick as appropriate)

Sound like the ideal place for business start ups / SME's /  Cash strapped CIO's  to get ahead?

Nice concept Ciaran, but is it possible? or just a caffeine fueled dream?

 Well I'm pleased to report that its all there, works and we've been using it for the last 6 years.

check it out if you haven't already

www.salesforce.com

;-)

Ciaran

PS. Thanks for reading this post ...yes its a bit of a rant... and rather long... but hey, you stuck around to read it. If you have anything else to add to the analogy...strongly agree or disagree or indeed you want to run with the little old lady who swallowed the fly thing.. please please comment.