August 2012 from 180 Systems – The hottest technology trend is in the clouds. Cloud computing enables organizations without IT resources to deploy applications such as ERP or CRM over the internet. All the vendors are jumping into the clouds whether they are a small company such as Blue Link (developer of an ERP system targeted to small and mid-sized distributors) or a large company such as Microsoft. In speaking with Mark Canes from Blue Link recently, he told me that most of his new clients will have their system running in the clouds. Blue Link offers a private cloud for each client. A private cloud means that a client has access to their own version of the software in their own private environment.
Other vendors such as NetSuite and salesforce.com offer a shared cloud using multitenant architecture whereby their clients share the same instance of the software on a server. When NetSuite updates their software, they can do it one place and all clients can be updated at the same time thereby reducing the costs to upgrade. When developers of private cloud solutions upgrade their software, they need to do it for each client separately. The private cloud offers some advantages in that the solution could be customized, but these days, customizations are avoided as much as possible because of the initial and ongoing costs. Microsoft has announced that Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 is scheduled to be released in October of 2012 and it will available in the clouds or on premise (on the ground in the customer’s office).
The Rolling Stones wrote “Get off my Cloud” in the 60’s. Today the software vendors are singing a different song – “Get on my cloud”