Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1118229967 ISBN 13: 9781118229965

Publisher: Wiley, 2012

The ultimate guide to assessing and exploiting the customer value and revenue potential of the Cloud

A new business model is sweeping the world—the Cloud. And, as with any new technology, there is a great deal of fear, uncertainty, and doubt surrounding cloud computing. Cloudonomics radically upends the conventional wisdom, clearly explains the underlying principles and illustrates through understandable examples how Cloud computing can create compelling value—whether you are a customer, a provider, a strategist, or an investor. Cloudonomics covers everything you need to consider for the delivery of business solutions, opportunities, and customer satisfaction through the Cloud, so you can understand it—and put it to work for your business. Cloudonomics also delivers insight into when to avoid the cloud, and why.

• Quantifies how customers, users, and cloud providers can collaborate to create win-wins
• Reveals how to use the Laws of Cloudonomics to define strategy and guide implementation
• Explains the probable evolution of cloud businesses and ecosystems
• Demolishes the conventional wisdom on cloud usage, IT spend, community clouds, and the enterprise-provider cloud balance

Whether you're ready for it or not, Cloud computing is here to stay. Cloudonomics provides deep insights into the business value of the Cloud for executives, practitioners, and strategists in virtually any industry—not just technology executives but also those in the marketing, operations, economics, venture capital, and financial fields.

From the Inside Flap:

It has created vast wealth for companies that seemed to spring up overnight, and it has brushed aside corporate icons, even entire industries, that once seemed unassailable. It has helped topple brutal dictatorships and has brought IT from the backroom into the boardroom, making it the centerpiece of some of the most farsighted and successful corporate strategies of the new millennium. It is the cloud, and it has forever changed the way business is done.

But what is the cloud, really? How does it work and how is it being deployed by some of today's most successful companies? More importantly, how can you harness its awesome power to help you wage and win the never-ending battle for profits and market share?

Find the answer to these questions and much more in Cloudonomics. Written by Joe Weinman, one of the world's most influential cloud thought leaders, this book is a gold mine of ideas, insights, and inspiration for leaders of established companies and for aspiring entrepreneurs who dream of being the force behind the next Amazon, Google, Facebook, or Twitter.

Using fascinating and instructive case studies to illustrate his points, Weinman drills down past the hype and hysteria, the myths and misconceptions, to uncover fundamental principles underlying how the cloud works, how it's used, and how it will evolve in a business context. Among other priceless takeaways, you'll discover:

• Where the conventional wisdom errs, and how to keep your IT and strategy on course
• How core characteristics of the cloud—such as on-demand resources, usage-based charging, and geographic dispersion—translate into business value: revenue growth, cost and risk reduction, and customer experience enhancement
• Why the cloud isn't just plumbing, but can become a cornerstone of your strategy, even in non-IT intensive businesses
• How to leverage new cloud business models
• How behavioral economics—humans' "predictable irrationality"—impacts cloud adoption
• How cloud technology and ecosystems are likely to evolve over the next decade

With a dynamic companion website, this book offers a critical, in-depth review of the cloud and its business uses now and in the near future, and an inspiring exploration of the business paradigm shift it has engendered. Cloudonomics is "must" reading for CIOs, CEOs, CFOs, strategists, IT managers and practitioners, students and academics, and all forward-thinking corporate leaders and entrepreneurs.

From the Back Cover:

Praise for Cloudonomics: The Business Value of Cloud Computing

"With this comprehensive, deeply researched book, Joe Weinman closes the case on cloud computing. And who could imagine a book on IT infrastructure and strategy could be a great read too? This book is going to help companies optimize their IT investment but, more important, position them to exploit the technology revolution of our time for competitive advantage and success."
—Don Tapscott, author of fourteen widely read books on IT in business and society, most recently Macrowikinomics: New Solutions for a Connected Planet

"Riveting reading—I couldn't put it down. With his mind-opening insights, Joe Weinman has made me realize the enormous strategic potential of the cloud, reaching way beyond cost and scale economics. Cloudonomics has the power to redefine B2C commerce, disrupt B2B business models, and create new value in previously unimagined ways. Fascinating."
—Fred Wiersema, Customer Strategist and Chair, B2B Leadership Board, Institute for the Study of Business Markets at Penn State, coauthor of the top-selling The Discipline of Market Leaders

"Anyone even considering entering this industry will be years behind not having read Cloudonomics. I couldn't stop reading it as I found myself saying, 'Yes! Exactly!' every other page."
—Chuck Price, President and CEO, Ajubeo, and former VP, Technology, TD Ameritrade and Fiserv

"Weinman delivers on his goal to provide a seminal and timeless overview of cloud computing. Cloudonomics is not an arcane mathematical discussion on economic theory. It's a fascinating overview of a technology revolution that's quite enjoyable to read, thanks to deep comparisons to events throughout human history and a balanced representation of many competing viewpoints."
—John Keagy, founder, Chairman, and CEO, GoGrid

"Cloudonomics is an exceptional book for IT professionals to understand how large-scale web companies can transform their organization using public, private, and hybrid cloud computing. The book underscores one central point—being flexible with cloud computing can drive your business."
—Allan Leinwand, Chief Technology Officer–Infrastructure, Zynga