Real cloud should be free range
Rami Houbby says too many providers are overegging the pudding when it comes to cloud claims
When it comes to organic free-range chicken and eggs versus battery-raised garbage, I guarantee anyone with taste buds will be happier with the product as nature intended.
But it costs more, which is why there was a time when any unscrupulous supplier who wanted to sell their wretched rubbish at maximum margin stuck on a "free-range" label and trousered the profits.
Thank goodness for the Advertising Standards Authority having cried fowl over that sharp practice – giving customers some confidence that they get what they pay for.
My beef is with the section of the communications industry that has conveniently forklifted their "hosted" or "colocated" offering away from the cheap and nasty supermarket shelves, as it were, and onto the true cloud aisle.
They are exploiting definition creep and befuddling the market. Cloud is not a PBX that has been planted in a datacentre off the premises (that should simply be called "off-premise"), nor is it a trumped-up Class 5 soft switch for rent.
These are in one physical location, or two if backed up for disaster recovery, so they're not cloud. A £9.99 website domain has more integrity as a cloud service, as does voicemail from a mobile operator.
Use of the term "cloud" has a tendency to make customers glaze over if you wander too far into technical detail, just like with food labelling. Is this chicken corn-fed, and is that a good thing? Does the RSPCA believe there's just enough room for said chicken to move around, but not quite enough shelter, and nothing for it to do? "Free range" is binary and a legal definition.
Consumers want to know if a product is free range or not because the label "free range" is a series of criteria that represents a standard. People want to trust cloud as a standard, but they can't.
But the term "cloud" does get a positive reaction. It's the promise of more agility, flexibility, and scalability. It represents access from anywhere, a best price, maximum resilience and no management headaches.
Do the majority of so-called cloud communications providers and services live up to these promises? No, they do not.
What really sticks in my craw is that the hosted or colo players that brand their product "cloud" aren't even the most cost-effective option. It's almost a 360° reversal of the chicken analogy where you pay more for the superior product.
With cloud, the "free-range" option is higher quality at the same or a better price.
It's a toss-up as to which one best reflects the needs, expectations and user habits of business customers in 2015 and beyond. Forget Generation X, because nowadays we're all members of a subscribe tribe, to whom the immediacy and responsiveness of applications matters.
Nobody expects to pay a premium, let alone any one-off costs, for anything, and they expect to be allowed to opt out – penalty-free – of your service subscription in days or weeks rather than months or years.
Yet again, real cloud gives wannabe cloud a stuffing on this count.
Free range or real cloud compares with the wannabe, "farm-fresh" version in that the former is ubiquitous, web scale, infrastructure-free, has cloud-level integration such as Microsoft Lync, mobility built in gratis, includes all PBX features for one cost, and has a predictable impact when it comes to changes, all for a maximum 30-day contract.
The wannabes cannot offer this: instead they rely on limited scale, hosted infrastructure, with app-level integrations required, mobility and other features only added for a premium, and are going to be less flexible. To boot, you can expect to sign up for at least a year.
Rami Houbby is managing director of Nconnect