Sunday, 26 May 2013
Weighing the pros and cons of Cloud-based Office tools
By Mary K. Pratt, Computerworld (US) | Jun 28, 2012
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PrintThe Museum of Modern Art's migration to the cloud started last June, when MoMA moved from an on-premises email system to Google's cloud-based Gmail and Calendar, says Juan Montes, IS manager for the New York-based museum. And now, he says, he's seeing employees turn to other cloud-based productivity applications on their own as they become more comfortable with the notion.
"There's wide adoption of what I call the Google collaboration space, and it's a mixed bag of things in there," Montes says. "We see people putting up Microsoft Office docs in Google to share and collaborate within the organization as well as outside it."
Enterasys Networks is migrating to Google for email and calendar, says CIO Dan Pelton.
Montes says that cloud-based software clearly has a strong foothold in his organization, but that he's still not quite ready to completely switch over to the cloud for personal productivity applications. Why?
Because, he says, he doesn't think personal cloud-based productivity tools are ready for prime time, despite the popularity of certain cloud-based applications among some MoMA staff. He still has questions about compatibility -- particularly when sharing files with workers in other companies -- and security, and he wonders whether cloud solutions really have as many features and functions as on-premises Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel.
Moving to the cloud incrementally
The Hendrick Automotive Group of Charlotte, N.C., recently moved its on-premises email to the cloud using Office 365, Microsoft's cloud-based office suite.
IT director Robert Taylor says he doesn't have the final numbers to determine whether the cloud will be cheaper than on-premises software in terms of fixed costs, but he says he expects it will likely be a financial wash between the two.
However, he says, there's a big gain in terms of how his 20 IT staff members spend their time "because we can grow the business without acquiring additional IT people or we can reallocate those human capital resources to developing other applications" that support the organization's core business.
