Most headlines touting a waiting "fortune" come with a catch. This one doesn't. It's exactly what an IT entrepreneur like Mark Cuban says he would do...
Precise is a developer of application performance management system. When it spun out of Symantec and became a private company, they had 1000 customers to support with limited IT resources. Instead of keeping their licenses for SAP and other enterprise software packages, they took the leap from traditional licensed software (and annual capital expenses on equipment) in favor of cloud, SaaS and virtualization.
Nothing they chose was revolutionary... they chose Salesforce and NetSuite for the front and back-office solutions. For customer support,they picked Drupal and Marketo for— both integrated using WebSphere Cast Iron Cloud Integration.
They dropped Microsoft Exchange for Google Mail and Microsoft SharePoint to Google Sites for collaboration. (Employees don’t have to do everything on Google as they can still access Microsoft Office applications or use an Outlook front-end.)
They executed a shift to virtualization for their servers— cutting their server expenses by more than half — and switched to VoIP for telephony.
That saved their company $2 million a year from its IT budget. Yep, 70% savings.
A successful integration but self-managed as the company itself was a software company...but you have to ask, "How will most companies of all sizes integrate cloud?"
There are so many elements to cloud that most will look to a solution provider, an integrator that knows what works and more importantly what works together. Cloud is a gold mine for integrators. We should be knocking on doors, armed with case studies like this, asking for fee plus 10% of first year annual savings. And positioning ourselves as the solution provider that we monitor and update the cloud strategy as the latest developments unfold.
Uncomfortable with these unfamiliar solutions? Try using them in your own company first so you experience the intimate details.
Read what the Executive VP of Precise writes about his transition to today's integration cocktail: cloud, SaaS, and virtualization.
