| Series Title | EurActiv |
|---|---|
| Series Details | 19.7.12 |
| Publication Date | 19/07/2012 |
| Content Type | News |
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Cloud uncertainty is the enemy of investment Neelie Kroes is selling certainty. The EU’s cloud computing strategy, due to be published this week, will attempt to provide European businesses with much-needed clarity over the rules that govern the use of data in the cloud. If businesses store their information with a European cloud provider, who owns that information, and who has the right to access it? What rules apply to the use of that information and how it is shared? Due to fragmented data laws, regulatory confusion and an arguably false perception of risk, the economic benefits of the cloud aren’t being fully realised. For Ms Kroes, the biggest barrier to a new, cloud-fuelled era of innovation is uncertainty. Reducing uncertainty is all the more critical as Europe struggles to identify growth. As research firm Gartner recently concluded, European businesses are two years behind their US counterparts in terms of cloud adoption. The inevitable sluggishness of pan-European policy-making, combined with complex and ever-changing data protection laws (which vary from country to country) is stifling investment in European cloud infrastructure. More often than not, when businesses make a decision to move to the cloud, uncertainty over compliance causes chief information officers to plump for the relative safety of a US provider. The cloud is not a new technology phenomenon, but it does signify a fundamental shift in behaviour. In a knowledge economy, this behaviour change represents nothing less than an industrial revolution. By changing the way in which they consume IT, companies can dramatically accelerate the creation of new products and services, and collaborate much more effectively. They can be more reactive to changing customer needs through the use of more powerful and accurate data analytics. And because companies only pay for the computing power they really need, the playing field between smaller and larger companies is effectively levelled, allowing start-ups to scale in a way previously unimaginable. But there’s another reason why Neelie Kroes is so keen to see her cloud strategy succeed. The very essence of the cloud is its elimination of boundaries. It allows businesses to access useful services without having to move to the same physical location, or even to invest in the same IT infrastructure, as the provider. Much like the EU’s own Common Market, the cloud is about removing barriers to doing business. And like the Common Market, it’s about leveraging economies of scale to create not only greater efficiencies but to increase competition. So for a Dutch logistics firm, the cloud might enable the provision of IT-powered services to customers throughout multiple regions, not only those in its own neighbourhood. For Ms Kroes and her colleagues, the cloud is the embodiment of the European Economic Community, eliminating obstacles, stimulating competition and opening up the market to new possibilities. It’s partly this realisation that’s encouraging the EU to reassess its strategy. But there’s an additional driver: the cloud can also help to leverage one of Europe’s greatest assets, its diversity. If our Dutch logistics company wishes to diversify and grow, in an ideal world it would want to take full advantage of the region’s best skills. So it might turn to a UK firm for procurement, or marketing expertise; to German or French companies for R&D and Scandinavian companies for design. Access to services supplied by the best and most specialist suppliers would be beneficial to any growing company. The cloud unlocks this diversity of European talent, making it possible to outsource the most applicable skills to the best possible providers. It’s a vision of perfect synergy, which the EU hopes will allow European firms to not only catch their competitors, but overtake them. The business model of the cloud is simple: the potential benefits increase as the cloud infrastructure gets bigger. In effect, the more companies that sign up to a single cloud provider, the greater the economies of scale and the value to all. In this way, a public cloud, shared by many different companies, across many different countries, can be a powerful vehicle for growth and innovation. But we can’t realise these benefits until companies become comfortable with the concept of housing their data and applications alongside those of their competitors, or locate it in countries in which the rules and regulation differ to their own. We can’t expect the cloud to support greater collaboration, or spark innovation, if businesses don’t fully understand the laws that govern their data. Once these uncertainties are removed, the development of pan-regional clouds becomes self-propelling. Large public clouds, with multiple stakeholders, not only allow huge economies of scale, but are also much better equipped to provide robust, high quality solutions, which are even more compliant with rules and regulations, because the bigger the scale, the more experienced the provider, and the better people they can afford to hire. Businesses crave transparency. At a fundamental level, they need to be able to judge a service not only on its merits but also on its potential downfalls. That’s why the EU must press for greater openness among cloud providers and ensure customers don’t require a lawyer to decode service level agreements. There should be template contracts and clear expectations relating to uptime, support response times and reliability to make cloud computing a much more attractive proposition. But the biggest enemy of investment is uncertainty. Without greater clarity and a clear intention to rationalise fragmented European IT laws, we can’t liberate ourselves from the legislative ambiguity that threatens to stifle the growth Europe so desperately needs. Neelie Kroes would do well to create directives and guidelines that are easy to understand and even easier to implement. After all, in the era of the cloud everything moves just a little bit faster. Ron Tolido is Senior Vice President and CTO Applications Continental Europe, Capgemini Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012EurActiv reported exclusively in July 2012 that the European Commission was finalising a strategy on cloud computing aimed at promoting the use of off-site data storage in a bid to cut information technology costs and create new jobs. |
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| Source Link | http://www.euractiv.com/infosociety/brussels-unveil-eu-cloud-computi-news-514012 |
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| Subject Categories | Business and Industry |
| Countries / Regions | Europe |
