Email In The Cloud The Norm?

At last weekends NCLGISA fall Symposium I was chatting with a group of fellow IT Leaders in local Government concerning my experience moving to Google Apps. It was an interesting discussion and I think the response I received tended to lean more toward where the majority of many IT professionals stand regarding the cloud and/or cloud services.

I made the comment that two to three years from now the conversation we will be having at these events will go more like this, "hey there goes Jane Doe from whatever county or city, they're still hosting their email; must be rough". I think that caught the group off guard I was speaking to and I got the impression they weren't entirely convinced.

I am curious to know what others think, because often those of us working in the IT field feel we are more likely not to avoid change or stick to "the old way of doing things". Maybe because we are constantly bombarded with trendy topics and the latest geek gadgets that somehow we will not miss the obvious or the changing tides approaching.

I can think of one major approaching wind of change we noticed a little later than we should have and that was what I refer to as the "white box era". Building PC's from scratch and opening PC/laptop chassis's to replace and repair hardware ourselves as opposed to outsourcing that type work via contract or warranty provided with our desktop replacement cycles is hopefully where most have landed. Don't get me wrong I guess this PC tech type work can have its place and time but if you haven't moved to a standard lease, service contract and/or replacement cycle using standard after factory warranties then maybe we need to have a further discussion.

Sometimes its good to be patient and let some go first and try the waters. But like it or not the Cloud is no longer a buzz word and is a reality. When will we embrace it?

I would love to hear your comments and questions if you happen to stumble across this blog.

dw