This is the second in a series of articles based on the popular Cloud Matters lecture series I’ve been giving to executives and their top staff at global Fortune 100, 500 and 1000 companies since 2012. These articles are for working pros at all levels and are delivered without icing and sprinkles.
The title question is a zinger, delivered with a grin when I’m told a client has gone with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and states they are paying X dollars for Y number of servers with Z discounts (or whatever other arrangements they’ve made). Of course, to be fair and honest, I do the same when clients tell me they’ve gone with Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, VMWare, OpenStack or whatever. Because clients paying X for Y with a side of Z are getting gouged every day.
As an outside advisor, I don’t negotiate deals or terms for my clients, though I probably should. Companies like Cloudyn and its many lookalikes are charging a commission of 2 to 3 percent of the cloud-bill for the same, and minting new millionaire employees as fast as the Denver mint ships truckloads of coins in the process. Meanwhile, I simply tell my clients what I know when asked, without charging fees in perpetuity for the know-how.
What I know is this, well at least part of what I know, because one can’t give away the cow without charging for the milk. Companies that move to the cloud are getting taken to the cleaners, literally, and have been for years. This is especially true for the early adopters, and it’s still true with pricing for cloud services dropping like a stone into a river.
The problem is bad, has been bad, and will continue to be bad. The sort of bad that comes from negotiating the price of your 60-proc E10K servers to the decimal point while letting Oracle decide how much to charge for the db12 licensing. Hey, what the heck, roll the dice with your cloud licensing too. After all, you’re saving money, right? Right?
Call when the sticker shock sets in, because it does and will. The dozens of companies that have jumped into the cloud cost-management game are counting on it. They make bank off the money they save clients, and like I said earlier, they’re getting filthy rich in the process. I suppose I should cash in too. Heck, why not? Everyone else is swimming in the pool; they don’t even seem to notice that big, fat, brown turd floating there. Hey, maybe it’s a chocolate bar, right? Right? Wink, wink.
Yeah, a little sarcasm and melodrama for your day. But sometimes that’s what it takes to get people to really listen, especially when you’re in a room full of people wearing watches that cost more than the car you drive—and I drive a pretty nice car, btw.
The deals most companies negotiate for cloud services are like those watches. Anachronistic. But hey, if you got the need, wear that Platinum Rolex Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona and overpay for your cloud services too while you’re at it. Me personally, I prefer the chestnut brown bevel with the ice blue face and not overpaying. That’s just me. I’m funny that way.
This is cloud matters, part 2. If this strikes a chord with you, I hope you’ll follow, share and sign your company up for Cloud Matters.
Thank you for reading,
William Robert Stanek
williamstanek at aol.com
Upcoming releases:
No comments:
Post a Comment