Cloud Computing - demise of 100,000's of SAP consultants - thoughts here

[Former Member]

Hi all

The latest buzzword in computing is "Cloud" computing. Whilst we might be a while off yet before this becomes commonplace especially for SAP users it is becoming more and more a reality in many businesses.

Communications technology, hardware and storage costs have so decreased in comparison to staffing / building / energy costs etc etc that this type of approach possibly is looking more and more viable.

The savings that can be made in not having to worry about Server uptime, applying patches, finding expensive short term consultants, dealing with "Off shored" call and support centers etc etc will begin to look ever more attractive to businesses trying to cut costs.

With really good hardware and proper virtualisation techniques it's possible to provide most of the services a "typical" SAP user would want at a cost (to the end user) far cheaper than it costs them now.

For SAP it's also a "No Brainer" since as operating systems,applications and most importantly the Customer Base matures one has to consider where the next income stream comes from.

Whilst this won't happen overnight and you will always have to have "Functional" consultants around this really is a WIN WIN situation both for SAP and the end user alike. The only people who would have to be retrained would be the current "Basis" teams who usually cost the most money in any case.

The end user would presumably (when its all up and running) get a nice uptodate system without any of the hassles of maintaining it and also be able to investigate and deploy new technologies without any major hardware investment whilst SAP would guarntee itself a continuing decent revenue stream.

This will take many years to achieve - maybe never 100% but it's certainly a viable business model for a great deal of customers running SAP who don't have huge or very complex operations right now.

Any thoughts - especially if you are likely to be effected by this.

Cheers

jimbo

[Former Member]

I just wanted to point out the [Cloud Computing wiki|https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/CloudComputing/Home] space that we've recently established here on SCN. Please have a look and feel free to contribute your thoughts there as well.

Cheers,

Steve