New Zealand and The Cloud

By
Santiago
2013-01-09
New Zealand and The Cloud

ShuttleCloud's Director of Operations Bob Greenlees recently sat down with TechDay, a technology resource for new startup businesses in New Zealand. They talk about both the present state and also the future of the cloud, along with New Zealand's position in the dynamic cloud marketplace.

What role does the New Zealand channel have to play in cloud?Bob: The cloud is global, so as cloud services continue to be adopted by businesses worldwide there will subsequently be a need for local value-added partners and resellers to assist New Zealand's businesses and educational institutions (both small and large) as they move into and within the cloud. Shuttlecloud works with clients and resellers in New Zealand and we see this as a significant opportunity within the cloud services ecosystem.

Are there any specific areas New Zealand should be capitalizing on?Educational institutions are rapidly embracing cloud services due to the large expense of implementing and managing on-premise solutions. With substantially reduced infrastructure and support costs, as well as a lower total cost of ownership, cloud services are becoming very attractive for schools.As these entities being migration their populations to the cloud, we've witnessed exponential increase of interest for customized and cost-effective educational solutions such as ours. While working with Harvard University and Stanford University, for example, we implemented custom (university-branded) self-service email migration portals with consumption-based pricing, rather than a flat fee. Schools are ideally suited to this type of solution as they simply want to offer email migration as an option, allowing them to avoid the expense and complexity of a large-scale data migration.What are some of the key issues keeping businesses (customers) from moving to cloud?One hindrance is the fear of having their data locked into a certain provider, which is actually a concern that we address with our data migration service. Our goal is to provide users with flexibility of their data and the freedom to migrate between different cloud services.Some customers may have a lack of confidence in cloud-based systems, most often derived from mis-information. In reality, cloud applications are generally more stable than in-house solutions in terms of up-time and speed.Anything else you'd like to add?This is a very exciting time to be a part of the cloud services ecosystem. The promise of low-cost, high-quality cloud alternatives to on-premise solutions has not only arrived, but is rapidly expanding. These services provide businesses and schools of all sizes, and particularly those in the SMB category, the powerful tools with minimal overhead that allow them to focus on their core business or educational goals. Ultimately, cloud services greatly reduce the complexity and expense of IT support. We have also seen significant interest from companies surrounding the issue of data ownership, given they migrate to the cloud or have already done so. Since data confidentiality, security, and ownership are of paramount importance, it is helpful for companies that are evaluating the cloud to partner with cloud data management vendors like ShuttleCloud to help manage their cloud data.

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