Dr. Behrend Freese, Managing Partner, UBIRY, Germany

Cloud Economics describe the business value of cloud services. The added value of cloud computing needs to be determined by a methodical approach. The presentation will provide an introduction to defining customer specific cloud values.

Cloud computing is an evolution with the claim of a revolution. Evolution in technology, revolution in business. Cloud computing has become an important technology shift for many industries and an opportunity to move the IT budget from CapEx to OpEx. Public clouds with infrastructure resources on-demand paid by hourly usage, and software as a service with flexible subscription plans paid per month and seats offer a huge potential to save near-term IT budgets. Nevertheless, cloud computing offers a variety of approaches to gain economic value. The increase in process automation and ubiquitous access to IT resources and applications over the Internet allows cloud computing users a better way to do business. For service providers, cloud computing offers the opportunity to new and flexible business models and contains the potential to access new customers and to enhance customer retention. Hence, cloud value contains various aspects which need to be considered individually. Companies should rather analyze long term gains through the improvement in productivity, reduction of time-to-market, increase in flexibility and scalability, and homogenization of the IT infrastructure in place of the pure potential shift of their IT budget from CapEx to Opex. The presentation provides industry examples and analyzes different economic values of cloud computing to receive a more detailed view on the opportunities and options to define an individual cloud value.