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3.5.4
The two Role Models – Cloud Service Vendor and Enterprise
Cloud Service Buyer
View of the Cloud Service Vendor
According to Accenture many top executive of Cloud service providers say
that it is one of the most difficult challenges to cope with the complexity
associated with setting up a Cloud service offering.
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New Cloud service providers have successfully positioned in the Cloud
services market, such as the Seattle‐based online retailer Amazon who is
today one of the worldwide leaders of Cloud services. According to IDC,
Amazon Web services (AWS) will exceed sales of $1 billion per year in 2012.
Also well‐known is Salesforce.com with a CRM‐solution from the Cloud for
Enterprise customers. In addition to the broad availability of Public Cloud
services, currently private Cloud services for enterprise customers are made
available. It can be expected that the portfolio of Cloud services for
enterprise customers will be covering a growing range of business areas.
View of the Enterprise Cloud Service Buyer
On the Cloud service buyer side, enterprise customers are equally
challenged when it comes to the systematic use of Cloud computing and
Cloud services. On the benefit side, the use of Anything‐as‐a‐Service (XaaS)
promises cost efficiency, scalability, and increased agility to highlight only
some of the benefits. In IDC’s (2009) survey conducted with IT executives
and chief information officers (CIO) across Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan),
they found that 41% of respondents are either evaluating Cloud solutions
for use in their businesses or already piloting Cloud solutions. On the other
hand, IDC also reported that nearly 60% of European chief information
officers are already using Cloud services—even if they do not realise it.
Cloud computing changes the pricing of IT services
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and can be used as a
response to the changes in the business environment to a tighter cost
management since the financial crisis in 2008. Enterprise customers do not
want to bind themselves to fixed IT costs. Enterprise customers want to
transform capital expenditures (CAPEX) into operational expenditures
(
OPEX) in IT. That is why “Pay per Use Pricing” used for Cloud services has
gained a lot of interest among customers.
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An expanded version of this chapter can be found under
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Jaakko Jäätmaa (2010): Financial Aspects of Cloud Computing Business Models, Information
Systems Science
