Future of cloud computing looks positive

The release of a report by analyst Gartner puts the timeframe for the take-off of cloud computing at seven years, but Inatech’s Ravindra Krishnappa has a more positive take on the future of the technology.

Gartner claims that, although there has been immediate excitement and development surrounding cloud computing, it will be at least seven years until it is adopted in mainstream IT. Gartner predicts that in the next three years cloud computing will be adopted by a select group of vendors, but will take a further four to be taken up by application development organisations.

Ravindra Krishnappa, Director of Inatech Infosolutions Pvt. Ltd, India, has different ideas:

“I disagree with Gartner’s timeframe. I expect the adoption of cloud computing to leap-frog in the next three years just as webmail did, as compared to owned or operated mail accounts.”

Having said this, Krishnappa went on to explain that some vendors will be quicker on the uptake than others. “All application vendors who are adept at integrating or interfacing with external applications are likely to adopt cloud computing early,” he said.

“This is primarily true from a vendor perspective. Examples of applications supporting theses are ‘point’ solutions that cover independent areas like campaign management to third party logistics. The reason they are best suited for this is because most of the already have some component of SOA in place.

“The best candidates to get onto the cloud computing structure within the business today, are the ones that are ‘collaborative’ in nature. The ‘backbone’ of business communication, including email, workflow, intranet components, workflow-enabled applications, calendaring and appointments; these would be the first set of candidates.

“In some cases, these can also be extended to the various communications channel of Voice, Video, File Share or Information share. The applications that will follow IMHO are the ones that are reliant on the above, such as time and expense management, issue tracking, customer service, and ticketing.”