"SaaS moves the trust boundary out one step further - you now have to also trust your software service vendors - but it doesn't fundamentally change anything," Schneier wrote. "It's just another vendor we need to trust."
That said, the difference is that the customer ends up relying completely on the service provider not only to secure everything from the usual malware, but also to run their business responsibly. And, adds Schneier, there are plenty of unknowns regarding the fate of your data if, say, the cloud services provider goes out of business or gets sold to your rival.
All of which, says Harries, brings the focus for telcos back to the ability to deliver what they promise - without overpromising.
"Consumers have learned to trust services like Gmail over the years, but for enterprises it's a harder thing to ask when you rely on security and reliability, especially with recent outages which make it clear to enterprises that this is not a silver bullet," Harries says. "Enterprises need to feel a level of comfort that they can get to that SaaS offering, they can get that application delivered to them or they can get to their Windows desktop when they need it."
Carriers brace for cloud computing
Enterprises love the flexibility that cloud computing services offer over the traditional hosting services that telecommunications carriers have enjoyed as an enterprise cash cow in recent years. That means carriers must adapt or risk losing enterprise business.
Carriers must proceed cautiously, however, to ensure that they have the right cloud platform and the capacity and security that enterprises will demand from cloud computing services. Carriers should also be ready for a radically different revenue model, as cloud computing customers prefer pay-as-you-go services to being locked into contracted hosted services, according to Gartner.
"The hosting environment is under attack, so [cloud services are] something they need to think about," says Alex Winogradoff, a vice president at Gartner. "If they don't go and follow suit and become cloud providers, they're going to lose any growth in the marketplace."
The cloud-based services market will be worth $150 billion by 2013, with telecom carriers unlikely to grab more than $5 billion to $6 billion - about 5% - of that pie unless they acquire existing cloud service providers, Gartner says.
To be true cloud service providers, telecom carriers need to meet four criteria, according to Winogradoff:
- Customers don't own, house or control the computing assets
- Service is delivered as pay-per-use
- Resources and services are virtual and shared by many customers
- Service must be accessible via a user-friendly web portal.
- Jessica Scarpati / SearchTelecom