Home What Brings Businesses to the Cloud? Convenience

What Brings Businesses to the Cloud? Convenience

In a Feb. 13 report, Gartner estimates 20% of businesses will get rid of all IT assets as they move to cloud.

Although costs and IT asset reduction are important benefits, the most important driver behind the move to the cloud is convenience. The ability to spin up new services on a whim, without waiting to procure and configure gear is a major win for the business leader who is trying to react to all of the opportunities to leverage computing to run a business.

Information technology is no different than any other manual, laborious task that has been automated and then packaged for general consumption. Heck, you could say that about all aspects of our society. We have constantly made shifts in consumption, based on conveniences offered to us by smart marketers who have automated something we used to do ourselves. We buy beer at the store but back in the 19th century, if you wanted a brew after a hard day’s work, you’d have to make it yourself.

Gartner is predicting this shift will take place in a short enough time frame that cloud computing will allow companies to dump their traditional IT assets (people and systems) and instead, purchase them as needed:

“If the ownership of hardware shifts to third parties, then there will be major shifts throughout every facet of the IT hardware industry. For example, enterprise IT budgets will either be shrunk or reallocated to more-strategic projects; enterprise IT staff will either be reduced or reskilled to meet new requirements, and/or hardware distribution will have to change radically to meet the requirements of the new IT hardware buying points”

Gartner estimates the growth of data is also increasing at a sobering 60% in the same time frame. With all that demand, it is easy to see businesses wanting to make it easier to buy and spin up systems, rather than growing IT teams and systems in house.

We may soon look back and be surprised about companies having specialized staff to manage computing infrastructure. Marketing the cloud will bring computing power to businesses as units of consumption that are readily available, 24 hours a day.

Virtualization has already benefited from the need for convenience in the enterprise. It allows an admin to spin up a new host environment with the flick of the wrist, responding to business needs in record time, and giving the system admin a chance to go home on the weekend and enjoy the better things in life.

Will convenience drive your business to cloud computing? And will it taste great?

Photo credit: cyrusbulsara

About ReadWrite’s Editorial Process

The ReadWrite Editorial policy involves closely monitoring the tech industry for major developments, new product launches, AI breakthroughs, video game releases and other newsworthy events. Editors assign relevant stories to staff writers or freelance contributors with expertise in each particular topic area. Before publication, articles go through a rigorous round of editing for accuracy, clarity, and to ensure adherence to ReadWrite's style guidelines.

Get the biggest tech headlines of the day delivered to your inbox

    By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. Unsubscribe anytime.

    Tech News

    Explore the latest in tech with our Tech News. We cut through the noise for concise, relevant updates, keeping you informed about the rapidly evolving tech landscape with curated content that separates signal from noise.

    In-Depth Tech Stories

    Explore tech impact in In-Depth Stories. Narrative data journalism offers comprehensive analyses, revealing stories behind data. Understand industry trends for a deeper perspective on tech's intricate relationships with society.

    Expert Reviews

    Empower decisions with Expert Reviews, merging industry expertise and insightful analysis. Delve into tech intricacies, get the best deals, and stay ahead with our trustworthy guide to navigating the ever-changing tech market.