Discussing wheter companies have to keep their information systemes within their walls or host it, wholly or partly, outside is a central issue.

The Saas or “cloud computing” logic majes sens. The time has come to take away the sacred aura of what,  as Nicholas Carrs  wrote in The Big Switch, is becoming as banal as electricity or running water. Plug, use, unplung. Nothing more. It’s a service like any other and the software + hardware duo is not a sacred cow anymore in people’s life. So why should it be so at the office. Today it’s nothing more than a simple computer and nothing more than software, it’s a part of my everyday life and the only thing that matters is that it does what I expect it to do. I don’t care how it’s done or whether my favorite software is on the net net or on my hard drive. Employee’s computers have shifted from a strategic good to a common consumer good.

[Read more...]