Being a startup, Equipois Inc. was in the enviable position of architecting its IT department from scratch. No legacy systems to manage, no ERP system to upgrade. And because Equipois was an innovative, young company, it made perfect sense to president and CEO Eric Golden to leverage the emerging cloud computing infrastructure, which allows companies to subscribe to an application without investing in hardware and software.
Equipois uses Salesforce.com for its customer relationship management application; Central Desktop, a software-as-a-service collaboration tool, for project management; and the company even tinkers with some Google Apps for coordinating calendars and a “follow-me” voice application. But, Golden says, there are some applications that just don’t belong in the cloud, such as the company’s file storage, its accounting software, and its MRP system.
“It’s less of a business reason for keeping these things in-house, and more of a question of how far along the [cloud] technology is,” Golden says, noting that he is slightly uncomfortable releasing these aspects of his organization into the public Internet. “To some degree, it is a comfort curve, if you will.”
Golden is not alone. A lot of manufacturing executives are looking to the cloud to help ease the time and expense of managing an in-house IT infrastructure. Maintaining legacy systems comprises up to 75% of IT costs, according to Ray Wang, principal analyst and CEO of Constellation Research Group. That alone—as well as lowering energy consumption and a company’s carbon footprint—is a good reason to move hardware and software into the cloud. But for many executives, the thought of moving a mission-critical system outside their four walls sends chills up their spines.