Clouditis: 21st century IT flu – or a savior in disguise? Part 1

by. David Jones

I came across an article recently that highlighted “5 Things CFOs Hate About IT” and the fifth item in particular made me smile.

The list focused on the question of “Why do we need you?” that is thrown at IT staff all the time. Apparently, CFOs realize that cloud-based service providers can deliver quite a chunk of what an internal IT team is charged with providing – but for less money up-front and without the frustration of items one through four in the list!

So, how do IT folk respond to this cloud behemoth coming over the horizon? Well, a number of them seem to have developed a new condition known as clouditis.

And what is clouditis, you ask? Clouditis is a condition that makes normally rational IT staff walk into meetings uttering phrases such as “not secure enough,” “the Internet might go down” and “it’s not compliant.”

The worrying thing is, the condition is highly contagious! Anyone from finance, operations or even HR can develop the condition simply by being within earshot of someone exhibiting the symptoms. Scary stuff!

Their fears are understandable if a little misplaced. The cloud introduces a new model of working that allows business users to decide what tools and environments they want to work with. More importantly, it provides this in a quick and easy to deploy manner, from a number of suppliers.

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