52 roundtable: cloud computing ... continued from previous page
Just listen to those children
Healing: “I joke that the single biggest influence on the BYOD market are the children of CEOs of companies. They go home and their children say that they need ‘one of these’, and the CEO goes into work and tells his CIO to make sure everyone has one.”
Taylor admitted: “Getting my iPad off my daughter to take to work is actually becoming far more of a challenge.”
Atkinson agreed that the younger generation adopts and adapts quicker. “It’s not just adult ignorance of cloud, but ignorance of potential different ways of working.”
Healing: “Organisations have been held back over the years by the IT security excuse. It is not IT functions driving the demand for cloud services but the users who can see a better way of doing things. My son doesn’t want to take a satchel of books to school, he wants to take a Kindle.”
Clark said he was genuinely worried about children losing their skills of concentration due to the intrusion of technology. They work with social media, on-line entertainment and instant messaging all going on and that must be a distraction to concentration.
Taylor added that because of increasing global competition, UK plc would need its future workers to concentrate more in order to provide better services and products.
Freeman said parents needed to take more responsibility for their children’s technology usage. “Children need to progress, but you need to find a suitable equilibrium.”
Atkinson: “Or are parents stuck in their old mindset about the cloud and not prepared to dispassionately view the new portfolio of cloud services available?”
Bree Freeman
Lovell: “The younger generation of workers are already asking why they can’t plug in their own devices when they’ve done so at school and university. The device is just the functional interface – but as long as the integrity of the data is secured, and we can validate where that data is when transient through the device, then I think BYOD will come in.” Significant cost savings could be made on office space and equipment, with the workforce becoming more mobile and flexible.
Atkinson: “This whole generation thing is a much bigger driver than we give it credit. It is interesting that a social technology driver has given cloud to the young generation rather than an educational driver. Why isn’t cloud a stronger factor through the early stages of education?” The world has moved to digital and generational schooling in cloud is the way to drive out the old school.”
Healing is a chair of school governors. “We must produce children who can write, but more and more a cloud-based virtual learning environment is becoming a feature of primary schools. I have seen a huge change and it is generally led by the children’s needs rather than the teachers.”
Children don’t harbour any of the security concerns about cloud that their parents do, said Lovell. “There are good reasons to police children’s online activities, but they are certainly more willing to accept different ways of working.”
www.businessmag.co.uk
What clouds are on the horizon for cloud?
Murray asked about growth and influences on the cloud industry. “How will the industry evolve in the next five years?”
Lovell: “The barriers to entry are incredibly low in the cloud industry, so choosing the right supplier and validation of their claims will be essential. Some companies are coming in with the right long-term attitude; some are just seeing the opportunity for revenue. No doubt, there will be consolidation in the future.”
Murray: “Where does the UK stand in the global cloud league table of adoption and reputation?”
collapse, great players will be created, there will be consolidation. Ultimately, this is a disruptive technology.
“Regulation is always a brake, and it’s important that it does not lay a dead hand on the industry.”
Brown felt regulation in the US was leading the way and the UK was in catch-up mode.
Lovell: “We are behind the US in terms of cloud adoption, and it is incumbent on us to help businesses gain more confidence in use of the cloud, help them catch up with those ahead of us.”
Atkinson agreed: “Cloud should not be a ‘buy it all or nothing’ proposition. You can take cloud services one by one, and build company confidence in it, knowing that there is a joined up map of services provision at the end.”
Highlighting that UK students are favouring work in USA, Asia and the Middle East, Lovell queried “What are we doing to generate cloud- focused students and businesses for the UK?"
Atkinson admitted that getting students with the right skills to enter the cloud industry was difficult.
Brown suggested the key future cloud skillset would be services integration and orchestration. “Businesses will want to run processes, not software applications. In a fully mature business environment, I believe 35% of services will be kept inside an organisation because they are core differentiators and need a high level of specialism. But, that still leaves 65% of services that could go to the cloud.”
Phil Leblond
Freeman: “I believe the UK is the global driving force for cloud computing. The USA has dominated the market for the past few years but we have the advantage at present. We do need to sort out industry regulation. We have the CIF (Cloud Industry Forum) but it is merely a Code of Conduct and there needs to be more regulation because so many more companies are flooding into the market”
Taylor: “Regulation will happen, we don’t need to ask for it. Lack of regulation allows the early bloom to flourish. It is a democratic industry because startup costs are low. Let there be thousands of startups. Some will grow, some
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – NOVEMBER 2012
Murray revealed that an international Symantec survey had reported that data among SMEs would increase by 178% within the next year.
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