Cloud PLM and Cost of Data: Your Mileage May Vary?

Cost is important. Period. It drives attention of IT managers and CFOs. With a massive changes cloud and mobile bring to a modern enterprise, structure and definition of cost will be transforming. On my way from Tel Aviv to Boston yesterday, I had a chance to read RWW Mobile article – The Rising Cost Of Mobile Data For Enterprises [Infographic]. The good news – the cost of mobile data is going down. Bad news – data trafic is growing.

I found the following passage very important:

Data management is often overlooked in the enterprise mobility conversation. When employers think of mobility in the workplace, the first thing they think about is security and locking down company information on devices that could easily be stolen, lost or hacked. Application deployment and management is the next task for the IT team to figure out, making sure that the right employees have the right apps to do their jobs. In the mobile world, the trend is typically toward more of everything. More security, more apps, more functionality. But more is also… more. It means that employees suck up more megabytes and hence more corporate resources.

If you are in the IT market to shop for enterprise systems, the question of cost (or total cost of ownership) is in the list of your top priorities. Cloud transformation and introducing of Cloud / SaaS packages are changing the way people thin about TCO. Before “cloud era” the traditional TCO formula of licenses, maintenance and implementation usually provided a basis you are working with. This is not true with cloud and SaaS. Software vendors stop selling licensing and switch to sell services. It opens additional opportunity to optimize resources and to get down cost of the software. At the same time, it may introduce new cost for enterprises.

What is my conclusion? Optimization. This is the right topic to discuss with enterprise cloud software vendor. How is it optimized for resources the application sucks from cables and mobile networks? It is the same question you ask your car dealer about the MPG. In the cloud world, you need to shop for lower traffic, which fundamentally will increase the efficiency of your IT stack and will drive TCO down. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Infographic courtesy of ReadWriteWeb article