cloud security: wait for trust or trust can't wait
Cloud technology, it’s only up from here. Gartner’s predictions may be wild, but they’re not wrong to think BIG when they talk about cloud technology and it’s impact on every aspect of IT.
For those in the vendor space, cloud is another disruptive technology. Disruption is, as always, both opportunity and risk. Can the vendor capitalize faster than their longstanding competitors? Will new competitors emerge with tighter focus? Will they move quickly enough to keep drinking their own milkshake?
Cloud security is three levels of disruption:
- Enabling security for liftoff – making companies comfortable with the idea that their data is everywhere.
- Managing security from the cloud – enabling security on premise and in the cloud with the redundancy, availability, flexibility of the cloud.
- Blow it out – securing the unique collaborative capabilities of the cloud, protection in a world where the walls have fallen.
None of this is new or proprietary. If you are a security vendor and your company isn’t thinking like this, it’s too late. Start looking for acquisition targets.
The one question that does stick out in my mind, particularly in security: even if the tech is cool, will companies trust cloud-based startups to perform tasks that they already have vendors for on premise? Essentially, what’s the stickiness of on premise trust with all the pressure to move into the cloud. How much time will on-premise vendors be given to get their cloud act together?
I suspect I know the answer, that it will depend on how deeply ingrained a product is in an organizations’ line of business or how hard it would be to strip out. This disruption, however, is still too soon to call. Too early to guess where the killer app will come from.
