Is a $10 bill for $5 bucks a “no-brainer”?

For the most part, progress makes things cheaper, particularly when it comes to technology. It also usually makes things better. I can remember paying over $1,500 a month for sketchy cell phone service. I can also remember paying $100 a minute for a dial-up internet connection and, not very long ago, plunking down over $3,000 for a 42″ flat screen. Yet all of these things are vastly better and cheaper today.

Often, when presenting Cloud Economics to a client, I get this odd sense that they simply do not believe me. Worse yet, they don’t probe to clarify or confirm, it’s as though the proposed cost savings to them is far to great to even be considered real.

It makes me think of the Quibids commercials. They say “you can get a brand new iPad for $5”. It is so preposterous, that I couldn’t bring myself to even go to their website to explore it further. But, for this post, I did. Typing Quibids in Bing, brings me a list of articles similarly titled “Is it a Scam?”. Well, I cannot say whether there is a scam going on but it seems like they are just an Ebay wannabe. Either way, their claims are too outrageous for me to pursue it further. So am I actually walking away from a $5 iPad? Since I can’t wrap my brain around the possibility, I’ll never know.

Okay, granted, Cloud Economics are not as outrageous; but significant enough. It is widely reported that companies are typically reducing their I.T. expenses by an average of 30%, some vendors claim higher, but I will stick with the conservative numbers. To most CEO’s this still sounds… “To good to be true”. I have been a CEO for almost 30 years, and I would be suspect of someone coming to my office offering to save me 30% on anything. For one thing, I’m no dummy, if there was an opportunity to save 30% on anything in my business I would assume that I already know about it and took advantage of it, or eliminated it as unworthy. For example, I am sure that I could save some cash if I switched my mobile phone service from AT&T to some no-name prepaid phone company. I could probably save a few bucks if we stopped buying the printer cartridges from HP and went with some no-name generic refills. I could save a little more if I went with some no-name insurance company. This is part of the problem. We often associate cost savings with having to make compromises, like using a generic brand.

Cloud Economics are different because they are a result of technological advancements. Significant savings are realized because the mechanics of delivering your I.T. services have evolved, not because you had to compromise. For just one example, if you are currently using Exchange on-premise for your corporate email (the most widely used method), you will save money by using the exact same system, Exchange, delivered via the cloud, by the same company, Microsoft. Your email on your phone or computer is no different, you had to make no compromise at all. This one is a “no-brainer”.

My advice to those who are suspicious about whether these savings are “real” is to do even the slightest bit of research. Type “savings from moving to cloud“, or anything similar, into Bing or Google and you will see your peers’ results. If your research extends only to asking your I.T. Guy, you will probably not get an objective answer. Duh.

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