CIO Magazine: Cloud Computing Gets Real and Lotus Knows

CIO Update published an article on office productivity applications and the shift to cloud computing. The writer, Robert McGarvey, highlights this shift and the many benefits that go along with it, mainly, lower costs.  IBM’s Sean Poulley is quoted throughout the article positioning IBM as a thought leader while touting Lotus Symphony as an open alternative to Microsoft Office.

We are at an historic inflection point, insists Sean Poulley, VP of Cloud Services at IBM.

The move into cloud-based computing is in full swing. That, added Poulley, is an unexpected reversal of the great business computing revolution of the early 1980s.

Of course, there also is IBM’s Lotus Symphony, another free, open source tool, presently still running on desktops but there, too, new plug-ins are enabling it to operate in the cloud. Suddenly, for the first time in a generation there is fresh interest in creating new office productivity apps.

As businesses struggle to control IT costs, today’s low hanging fruit has emerged as productivity software — especially with perfectly adequate tools available in the cloud at much less cost. “Productivity at IBM did not grind to as halt when we stopped paying for Microsoft Office licenses,” said Poulley.

Link to the article. >>