Reuven Cohen

I keep reading these stories about how various cloud service providers are building up their consulting practices around cloud computing mostly to address the enterprise market (see my previous post for some thoughts on that subject). These articles mostly read like it's a surprising realization. Today's post comes via our friends at GigaOM, I'm actually a little surprised to see this type of marketing piece from them, but that's besides the point.

Let me get to the point. Of course professional services are important. These services are in many cases the most important part of the the decision process for businesses looking at utilizing cloud products. If you're going to implement an SAP platform (as a traditional example) you're most likely going to hire consultants and integrators to assist with the heavy lifting. The cloud is no different. Yes, you're going to hire a cloud consultant, expert, guru, whatever you call them, this is a certainty. The real question is whether that consultant is part of your providers organization or external. But to say this is a surprising realization, is absurd. Unless you of course have all the answers to all the questions.

So my word to wise, your cloud deployment is only as good as those (the people) who are going to implement. Do your homework.