Foreword

Cloud computing is information technology (IT) offered as a service. It eliminates the need for organizations to build and maintain expensive data centers. It enables organizations to stand up new systems quickly and easily. It provides elastic resources that allow applications to scale as needed in response to market demands. Its pay-as-you-go rental model allows organizations to defer costs. It increases business continuity by providing inexpensive disaster-recovery options. It reduces the need for organizations to maintain a large IT staff.

IT is critically important: without it, most organizations can’t function effectively. And yet, except in a few special cases, IT typically doesn’t give its organization a competitive advantage—it isn’t a core capability.

Modern economics are driving organizations to externalize noncore capabilities. If the noncore capability available from an external provider is more cost effective, then it should be externalized. By this criterion, IT is a perfect candidate for externalization.