Cloud Computing and Mobile Apps Could Shake Up IT Business

Cloud computing might be part of the next great evolution of computing, but mobile computing probably will be such an intrinsic part of the architecture that the two will be hard to separate. The ramifications could be substantial.

Amazon’s AWS Marketplace, for example, could have huge ramifications for sales forces in the communications and information technology marketplace. As AWS Marketplace and other similar marketplaces develop, the “cloud” becomes the way everyone gets access to business apps and data.

Separately, Hewlett-Packard (HP) has launched an “HP Enterprise Mobility Platform” designed to allow telcos to create “enterprises app stores.”

Service providers can populate the app stores with custom apps designed to use data from corporate back-end systems (such as CRM and ERP) and deliver it to increasingly mobile staff using tablets and smartphones. The assumption is that apps and data can be gotten directly by any device from the mobile network.

Both offers illustrate use of cloud computing and mobility to make business application installation and use a simple mobile app install to a device with web browser capability and broadband access.

What you will note about the enterprise app store concept is that it disintermediates nearly all of the premises networking infrastructure. There is no need for the enterprise local area network, except perhaps to switch to Wi-Fi access at times.

You can imagine this will have serious implications for firms that traditionally make a living selling gear and services for enterprise LANs. Just as easily, you can see the upside for traditional communications providers who now could have an expanded role in the information technology business.

What products would be “natural” parts of a communications and information technology bundle? How much easier would it be for traditional telco sales organizations to sell key business software?

In fact, non-technical sales forces of all types might find there are new opportunities to sell products that might have been “too technical” in the past. Firms outside “IT” might find they can create bundles almost on the fly, customized for vertical markets or businesses of various sizes and types.

A shift to some new computing architecture based on cloud resources and mobility could have huge implications for any number of businesses in the information technology and communications businesses.