Team Two pg 1

Team Two:
Jordan Specht
Sydney Hickey
Abby Kemp
Genevieve Showalter
Christian Gonzalez
Chapter 6 Collaboration Exercise
6-7: Using the knowledge of this chapter and the intuition of the members of your team,
summarize threats that cloud services present to such ISVs.
The biggest threats that the cloud presents to ISVs, which are pointed out in our textbook on pg.
210, is its ability to be elastic, flexible, and safe (investment-wise). The cloud also has speedy
development, small capital needs, known cost structures, and a huge gain in economies of
scale. This all sounds impressive, but what does it mean?
These threats posed by the cloud are forcing ISVs to take a look at their models and reconsider
everything they can to make their game competitive with the cloud. For example, these ISVs are
now working to make their products a service, or software as a service (SaaS). This one attempt
to keep the advantageous cloud at bay has many problems for the ISV that seem overwhelming
for one change.
In-house hosting does not usually have ready-to-provision infrastructure, which is required
when using SaaS, according to www.ebizq.net. This is just one hassle of SaaS for ISVs,
consider the seemingly countless others to follow when other changes are trying to be
implemented. With the world rapidly changing with technological advancements and data
becoming the resource craze, cloud has the majority of advantages, and keeping up with the
cloud using old models and methods is deemed inefficient.
The most crucial threat that the cloud presents could possibly be the flexibility and the elasticity.
Customers can be very demanding, and if your service is not meeting those demands then
business can take a huge hit. The cloud has seemingly infinite computing resources with leases
that can provide or decrease available resources to match demands within shockingly short time
frames. ISVs are striving to match this elasticity, because customers can become impatient with
a page that loads just a few more seconds slower than another. Just a few seconds can pose a
serious threat thanks to the cloud.
6-8: Suppose your team owns and manages one of these ISVs. You learn that more and
more of your clients are choosing SaaS cloud services like Google for email, rather than
setting up local email servers.
a. What, if anything, can you do to prevent the encroachment of SaaS on your
business?
We believe, for the most part, the cloud is the future. Eventually, we will look back at things like
local email servers and wonder why we even set them up in the first place when we had the
cloud all along with its universal access and ridiculously low price tag in comparison. The

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security with the cloud is questionable sometimes, but we believe it will improve, making people
more comfortable with it as time goes on. Considering all of that, we do not believe there is
anything we can do to prevent the encroachment of SaaS on our business because of the clear
advantages it provides. It would be like trying to convince someone to buy a VHS for $1000 over
a Blu-Ray player for $50.
b. Given your answer to question 6-8a, identify three alternative ways you can
respond.
Considering cloud services like Gmail have a data limit (15GB), we could offer
unlimited data to our users.
Keep away from relying on services; for example, focus on producing products
that arent in need of constant updating and are reliable rather than high-maintenance
products that are constantly developing problems in the race to look the newest.
Target advertising towards entities most likely to have physical control of their
data, such as companies that are in the banking and finance sectors, and at the same
time stress the negatives of the cloud.
c. Which of the three responses identified in your answer to question 6-8b
would you choose? Justify your answer.
We believe it would be in our best interest to utilize all three strategies. In what seems like a
losing battle, we might as well use all of our guns and shoot for the moon trying to convince
customers to use a, what seems to soon be, an outdated technology. By offering unlimited data
that clearly puts us ahead of the curve because of the data limits other cloud services provide.
By focusing more on reliability as opposed to looks we can guarantee there will be no problems
with our software and, although it wont look as pretty as others, it will do what you need it to do
without any issues. Also, by stressing the negatives of the cloud to consumers, Im sure it would
scare them away from using the cloud and, in perhaps an unethical way, resort to using our
services.
6-9: Even if SaaS eliminates the need for email and other local servers, there will still
remain viable services that you can provide. Name and describe those services.
If SaaS was to eliminate the need for email and local servers I believe that there would still be
some companies that would benefit from the services of ISVs. Some of the companies would be
one that are in the finance and banking sectors. These companies would not want to have all
their clients stored on the cloud because it would put very valuable information at risk. These
companies would instead opt for having an ISV set up a local server for them. Another type of
business that would benefit from an ISVs services would be a company that has highly
structured procedure needs. An ISV can setup a server that can be used for that company's
specific needs.
6-10: Suppose instead of attempting to adapt an existing ISV to the threat of cloud
services, you and your teammates decide to set up an entirely new business, one that
will succeed in the presence of SaaS and other cloud services. Looking at businesses in

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and around your campus, identify and describe the IS needs those businesses will have
in the cloud services world.
If my teammates and I were to set up a new business to address the IS needs of the business
on campus I think there are a few different fields that we could steer our services towards. For
one I think that we could make a service that would safely compile, store and process the
payments of all Clark College students. Another service that we could provide would be one that
would store the grades of the students in a central location that students, teachers, advisors,
and other people could access given the permission to access them.
6-11: Describe the IS services that your new business could provide for the business
needs you identified in your answer to question 6-10.
One of the current weakest spots when it comes to the cloud is the lack of security. Services our
business could provide to a new company separate of ISV could include increased security
techniques. Common security issues with the cloud include network outages and denial-ofservice attacks, which can be extremely harmful to consumers and businesses alike. Our
company could provide a powerful protection system from hackers to prevent denial-of-service
tasks, or provide backup power in the case of network outages.
(Kroenke & Boyle, 2015)
6-12: Given your answers to questions 6-7-6-11, would you rather be an existing ISV
attempting to adapt to this new world or an entirely new company? Compare and
contrast the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative.
As the cloud becomes increasingly more popular among businesses, it appears that being an
entirely new company would be much easier than an existing ISV trying to adapt. The cloud
offers nearly infinite storage, at a fraction of the cost. Technology is changing so rapidly that ISV
companies are having a hard time keeping up. Different pieces of an IS model are slower to
change than others, and changing the entire model is required for a company to adapt with the
currently evolving world, a major disadvantage of maintaining an ISV company. On the
advantageous side, an ISV company would still be of use to companies who are required to
have physical data. In addition there are several customers who still have not yet adapted to the
cloud, so there is still a large range of customers. This also serves as a disadvantage to a new
company that is not ISV based. Since the cloud is relatively new however, there are various
opportunities for support such as security, system integration and customer support.
(Top 10 ISV challenges with Cloud, Analytics, Mobile and Social Transformation, 2014)
(Staff, 2014)
6-13: Changing technology has, for centuries, eliminated the need for certain products
and services and created the need for new products and services. What is new, today,
however, is the rapid pace at which new technology is created and adapted. Using cloud
services, as an example, create a statement of posture that business professionals

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should take with regard to technology in order to thrive in this fast-changing

environment. Notice the verb in this assignment is thrive, and not just survive.
With regard to cloud services, business professionals will soon have many important
decisions to make. It seems to be inevitable that the majority of businesses will use cloud
services as a norm within the next decade or so and that is no surprise. On page 210, the text
offers the advantages and disadvantages of cloud services as compared to traditional in house
hosting; it is clear to see that the positive seems to outweigh the negative with the cloud. It
would be common sense then to assume that in house hosting should soon be a thing of the
past. However it is important for business owners to strongly consider those negatives and how
they apply to their specific business strategy. For those entities that are required by law to have
control over their data, the negatives of cloud services seem to outweigh the positive benefits.
And for those business owners, who feel that their operations may be vulnerable to any threats
due to the loss of control of location of data, dependency on vendors or limited visibility into
security, should also considering limiting their use of cloud services. When a business can
separate sensitive data from other data, they may utilize both in house hosting on a minor scale
and cloud services. For those entities that feel they would benefit from full utilization of the
cloud, they have the option of purchasing a private cloud. A virtual private cloud or VPC is an
offshoot of a public cloud and it offers highly restricted access that is protected. (Kroenke &
Boyle, 2015)
Whichever case is best for the business, any utilization of cloud services will have huge
benefits in regards to technology. The cloud offers business owners the luxury of avoiding
obsolescence. It may be easy to overlook this point, but I find it to be one of the most important
benefits of cloud services in general. Rapidly changing technology has been an expensive
waste of money for all consumers. The need to keep up is imperative but the cost is daunting.
The ability to forgo obsolescence is an extremely exciting development! Therefore, the cloud
can basically increase the value of assets. Whether businesses fully utilize cloud services or
merely dabble when it is cost effective, the cloud will benefit a business in regards to
technology. (Kroenke & Boyle, 2015)

Works Cited

Kroenke, D., & Boyle, R. (2015). Using MIS. Pearson.

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Shreekanth, Joshi. (2010, May 17). Implications of Cloud Computing for ISVs. Retrieved from
ebizQ:
http://www.ebizq.net/topics/cloud_computing/features/12623.html
Staff, V. (2014, May 9). Top 10 cloud computing risks and concerns. Retrieved from V3.co.uk:
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2343547/top-10-cloud-computing-risks-and-concerns
Top 10 ISV challenges with Cloud, Analytics, Mobile and Social Transformation. (2014,
September 20). Retrieved from Cisco Blogs: http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/top-10-isvchallenges-with-cloud-analytics-mobile-and-social-transformation
What is ISV (independent software vendor)? - Definition from WhatIs.com. (n.d.). Retrieved
May 10, 2015, from http://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/definition/ISV