Cloud Computing and Intuitive Tools: The Next Game Changers in IT Date:   Tuesday , March 02, 2010 Against the backdrop of snowy Atlanta the meetings rumbled on, and the compulsion to fit in the schedule as per the weather forecast without much choice was reminiscent of the current IT scenario. The media reports forecast the irreplaceable invincibility of the clunky, expensive software forcing business leaders fit in their models, without a choice, to suit those complex software environments. The need of the hour is not about attaining maximum ROI in that rigid technological atmosphere, it is rather to evolve services for a new breed of software, which are easy to deploy and guarantee a faster timeline to ROI. A software in the IT group of a company, which is constantly ensuring a higher ROI for the unit may not work well if used in the other units of the business. The software has to be involved in the business, marking the value and the user-friendliness for the units that are, unlike the IT departments, lack complex technology knowledge. Millions of dollars on buying and deploying software solutions have left companies in a fix. Now, the appetite for a million dollar software is over, as people don't have time for it. Technologies like cloud computing and intuitive analytics see increased acceptance, as business leaders look for easily deployable and easy to use tools. Hardware and computing cycles are a commodity, and the use of cloud computing makes the entire infrastructure much simpler and easy to use. The next generation that enters the work force has grown up taking the iPod and Facebook for granted. The old clunky, complicated software solutions will not find acceptance among them. The opportunity is huge to replace this clunky world of user-hostile software with intuitive, easy to deploy, fun to use software that deliver ROI. This is the wave of the future and the time horizon is within just 5 years. Companies today have more data that they know what to do with. Their gut tells them that there is a lot of value hiding in the data, and every CIO is scouting for a quick way to deliver this value to the business. The companies do not want to just slice and dice data with a hope to find intelligence. Rather, there is an increased demand for an efficient process, which would deliver immediate results. The CIOs and business leaders are looking for the iPod equivalent of software. “Can I just install it, turn it on, and use it?” The onerous task rests on software vendors to deliver on this expectation. The ability to provide the right answer to this question will become the mandatory requirement to everyone in this game. In the present context, it’s the user perspective that should be the first priority for any entrepreneur who wishes to dream. And it's also important not to let the tsunami of the media reports influence the decisions. As commonly said, one has to learn the trick to separate the wheat from the chaff and act accordingly. Radhika Subramanium, CEO, Emcien