From InfoWorld: Google and Salesforce.com executives stressed the benefits of cloud computing Thursday at a Silicon Valley technology event, with a Google executive going so far as to state that cloud deployments are now necessary for a business to stay competitive. Executives from the two cloud service providers appeared at a "Cloud Clinic" event at the PlugandPlayTechCenter in Sunnyvale, Calif., hailing the cloud concept and their companies' respective cloud offerings. The old, complex model of computing requires that users buy an operating system, security servers, and other components, and hire perhaps a "small army" of people to support their systems, said Paul Slakey, Google director of enterprise channels. The cloud, however, offers massive scalability and economies of scale, he said. Salesforce.com had the right idea about companies having no software themselves, he said. "Companies that don't adopt this [model] are very quickly going to find their costs of doing business are non-competitive," Slakey said. The cloud offers lower total cost of ownership, said Steve Lucas, Salesforce.com senior vice president. He cited the current down economy as offering an opportunity to examine the cloud. View: Article @ Source Site |