The cloud will soon supplant on-premise security initiatives. IT is at a crossroads: the acceptance of cloud-based computing as the chief business driver.
Erasmus Wilson, the celebrated Oxford professor once proclaimed, “When the Paris Exhibition [of 1878] closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it.” History is littered with those who refused to embrace the obviousness of the future. Didn’t Digital founder Ken Olsen prognosticate “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home,” in 1977. (His company was broken up for parts after its acquisition by Compaq in 1998.)
There are many of us who have been around IT long enough can even remember how storing 1MB on a 3.5” hard case floppy disk was cutting edge IT. Yes, I remember punch cards too, but the point is that IT grows up. It advances, evolves. Thirty years on from those halcyon days, IT is facing its latest crossroads: the movement away from on-premise solutions and the acceptance of cloud-based computing as the chief business driver.