Cloud Computing: Do IT Execs and C-Level Executives Differ?

The social networking community and advisory analyst firm Horses for Sources - a multi-disciplinary group of analysts and experts in global sourcing strategies across both IT services and Business Process Outsourcing domains - recently conducted research together with the London School of Economics that suggests a gulf may be emerging between IT executives and the C-suite when it comes to Cloud Computing.

The October 2010 study

The October 2010 study was based on the responses of 1053 participants across business buyers, IT buyers, advisors, providers and industry influencers.

It has been clear at each and every Cloud Expo - we just has 7th Cloud Expo in Silicon Valley and are getting ready for 8th Cloud Expo in New York next June - that the business side plays an ever larger role in accelerating cloud adoption. But this is I think the first external study to confirm that dynamic.

Cloud vendors at each Cloud Expo have been more and more delighted from one event to the next, as Cloud Expo delegates tend to be business function leaders with heavy influence over IT spending for their function.

Focus on use cases

Through a focus on use cases and real-world examples, we are hoping at Cloud Expo New York in June to help bring IT executives on board too, as the benefits of Cloud Computing are dissected technically as well as strategically. A great example would be an upcoming session by AT&T, which has just created a division devoted to pursuing wireless healthcare using cloud computing. Here it is the provision of data storage and processing over the Internet that is transformative: it is absolutely a technical play.

Cloud Expo New York will be the first in the international Cloud Expo series to have a dedicated track on "Telcos in the Cloud." Within that we will be showcasing sessions on such sub-topics as Carrier-Grade Clouds, Cloud Communications for the Enterprise, Voice Mashups, Hosted VOIP Services, and Using the Speech Cloud.