NETTING IT OUT

We predict that, thanks to Edward Snowden's disclosures about government surveillance, a new regulatory environment will emerge—one that ensures consumers and corporations that their data privacy and communications will be honored. We believe that these regulatory changes will take effect within two years, because, unless they do, the global economy will be devastated.

Once mobile and Internet privacy and security are mandated, we predict that the demand for cloud computing will explode, propelled in part by end-customers' requirements to be able to access and manage all their information and activities from anywhere at anytime.

Welcome to the Customer Cloud! We believe that you have only have two years to get ready.

By 2015, Customers Will Expect Your Firm to Provide a Customer Cloud Where They Can Manage Their Stuff

Customer Clouds Are Used to “Manage My/Our Stuff.” Consumers and business customers are already using cloud-computing infrastructure to store and retrieve their digital libraries of music, photos, reading material, and other digital assets they want to be able to access from any device at any time or place. Note that many of these assets may be customer-created: the customer’s own photos, music they have composed or mixed, articles they have written. If a customer purchases a product from you, and/or uses a service you provide to manage any of their assets, they’ll expect you to provide a customer cloud for them to manage their stuff.

THE NEXT BIG THING: CUSTOMER CLOUDS 

Customer Clouds Let Customers Access and Synchronize Their Information

What’s a “Customer Cloud”? It’s the on-demand computing and networking infrastructure that enables your customers to securely manage their information, their assets, their events, their stuff, and their projects from their mobile devices and/or from their computers. By 2015, we predict that all organizations (B2C, B2B, for profits, nonprofits, and government organizations) will need to have all of their customers’ data in the cloud. Why? Because, for better or worse, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google have set the bar for what customers now expect when it comes to interacting with the Cloud. Customers are used to being able to access their information, content, and services from any device and from anywhere. Business customers and consumer customers dealing with your firm will want the same ease of access, consistency of information, currency of updates, and synchronization of information across their various devices that they’ve learned to expect from the leading consumer cloud brands.

By 2015, we predict that citizens and corporations will once again be willing to entrust their communications and their data to secure, encrypted networks, knowing that they will be notified in advance and/or that a warrant will be required before their communications are tapped or their data is searched…(more)

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