Outsource Issue 22 - (Page 65)
FEATURE CloUd PlATFoRms
Platforms make sense in the Cloud!
One of Outsource’s star online columnists explains why the future of commerce in the cloud will develop through platforms…
Dr Richard Sykes Dr Richard Sykes has held senior executive roles in a major global multinational, and non-executive chairmanships of smaller ventures, and has lived and managed businesses internationally. He is a columnist for Outsource online.
n October Leading Edge Forum study tour in California, visiting Silicon Valley pacesetters. Eighteen months ago I forecast that the real outsourcing commerce of ‘the Cloud’ would develop in the form of platforms. All that we learnt in the Valley confirmed that judgement. A platform? Consider the iApps platform: a technical construct in ‘the Cloud’ that enables innovative ventures to create and deliver new applications for the iPhone. The platform provides an integrated set of infrastructural (data processing, storage and network) and support services to the technical standards that ensure full compatibility with the iPhone – and these services scale rapidly if sales of the new iApp prove to be a runaway success! PayPal is now positioning itself as a mobile banking platform ‘in the Cloud’, offering an increasing diversity of services for the management of personal accounts and payments through the increasingly intelligent mobile phone. Security is ‘in
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the platform in the Cloud’. There is a developers’ area of the platform (the first, PayPal claims, to be offered by a Financial Services company) with access to secure APIs. The old-fashioned signed cheque can be deposited by taking a photo of each side of the cheque and despatching the paired images. Facebook is also now positioning itself as a platform, developing an increasing diversity of services for its over-500m active users on its core technology platform (that also claims to be the largest gaming platform in the world). It is eyeing its future as a potential replacement for the intranet in the large enterprise – it has recently launched a ‘Groups’ capability and argues that it is more in tune with the working culture of the Millennial generation that is now moving into, onto and up the corporate ladder. In this vision, the Facebook platform could be exploited to allow a more seamless interaction between the contemporary Enterprise and its customers. In the meantime, salesforce’s well established force.com is gaining ground
as a leading platform for the development of, and delivery of, business applications, particularly in the web services arena. It provides access to pre-built software components: 80% simple assembly plus 20% new code = more rapid creation of new applications. So here is a new dimension to the Enterprise (out)sourcing strategy. The Enterprise will already have the essential elements of an internal platform on its infrastructure. Yet key to most businesses is effective and real time access to customers, suppliers and the supply chains that support external realities of the business model. The developing commerce of these ‘platforms in the Cloud’ may offer a new and innovative means for the sourcing of an exostructure able to support delivery of the outward facing aspects of the Enterprise business model. (This article first appeared at www. outsourcemagazine.co.uk – for more information on writing a column for Outsource, write to the editor at jamie. liddell@outsourcemagazine.co.uk)
“Most applications that are not performance sensitive are ultimately going to be suitable to the cloud; the real challenge is, where do you put your data?” – Adrian Kunzle
www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Outsource Issue 22
Outsource Issue 22
Table of Contents
Shutting the Door?
Q&A: Deborah Kops
Colombia
LPO
Editorial Board Roundtable
Head-to-Head
HR Trends
Long Live AMS!
The Provider Perspective
Platforms Make Sense in the Cloud!
NOA Pathway
Case Study: Kingâs College Hospital
Egypt
Silver Lining
Roundtable Write-Up
Case Study: Nokia & Hyphen
Alan Leaman
Leah Cooper
Kay Formanek
Paul Awcock
News & Comment
The Legal View
NOA Roundup
Online Roundup
Letter to the CEO
Letters to the Editor
Sourcebites
Inside Source
The Last Word
Outsource Issue 22
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