SharePoint Experts Say Cloud Collaboration Is Inevitable
While the recent NSA leaks have caused IT decision makers and individuals alike to reconsider their use of cloud services to store and selectively share their files, several SharePoint experts today said they believe online collaboration is inevitable. Nevertheless most mid- and large-size organizations that are using cloud-based implementations of SharePoint -- or considering doing so -- will continue to employ a hybrid strategy.
That was the consensus of a number of participants, including myself, in a Tweetjam organized by Metalogix SharePoint evangelist Christian Buckley this morning. "Companies will use more and more hybrid scenarios to find their way into cloud offerings," said Michael Greth, a SharePoint MVP, specialist and community leader.
Antonio Maio, a product manager at TITUS and SharePoint MVP agreed. "Hybrid will be around much longer than previously anticipated," he said. "Reality of difficult change."
That change has become more difficult following this summer's NSA leaks. For example, 46.3 percent of 300 Redmond magazine readers responding to an online survey said they were concerned about potential government surveillance and 13 percent said they're pulling back on such initiatives. But the economics of cloud computing are going to ultimately dictate more usage not less over time, many predict.
"You will be left behind if you aren't in the cloud and left to watch the people use the nice new features," tweeted Ben Henderson, client services manager at Colligo. Nevertheless it will remain a hybrid world for the foreseeable future, Buckley predicted. "Data storage/ownership issues will get resolved," he said.
So what do organizations need to do to prepare to move to the cloud? Buckley tweeted, "1) priorities of each workload, 2) governance strategy between cloud and on prem systems, 3) THEN focus on new functionality."
You can view the entire discussion and feel free to weigh in here.
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 09/25/2013 at 12:40 PM