Cloud Services - Business Fundamentals

I thought I'd just separate out some key points I made in my talk last night on cloud services business fundamentals - what are the emerging axioms by which we're going to do business in the cloud in future?

• Market size: at least 1.3 billion users (and counting)
• Competition: anyone else in the world who can develop and operate the same software/services as you
• There will only be room for 1-3 profitable operators in each niche
• But there will be a lot of niches!
• Corporate Cloud Services spend will be $42Bn/year by 2012 (IDC, Oct 2008)
• 0.001% = $42 million annual revenues


• Rules of engagement:
• Frictionless sign up / leave model
• No vendor lock-in possible any more
• Reputation and trust are everything
  
• Customers own their own data
• They can ask for it back
• They can control their own privacy settings
• However, while they "lend" it to you, you can make $$
• The customer is in charge
• However, there are plenty of customers to go around!