DB2 and Informix partners realize new business value through “the Cloud”

If your customer’s data center was lost to a fire – would you be able to help them be up and running in a day or two?   Are you are  you looking to expand your customer base beyond those that can afford their own data centers…. without having to become an outsourced data center provider?

Last post I wrote about the value of “Cloud” technologies to improve an organization’s agility and IT economics.  But I forgot to mention the impact that this technology evolution can have for business application providers.   There are two stories I want to share that highlight this impact.

Cloud enabled “Software as a Service” solves a business continuity emergency

Mitchell and McCormick is an industry leader in providing solutions for the Public, Mental, Rural, and Environmental Healthcare industries.   One of their clients, a medium-large sized health care provider that has run its operations with M&M software for many years, experienced the unfortunate challenge of a fire that significantly damaged its data center.

Amazingly, they got their system back in full operation in just a couple of days!   There were two reasons for this.  First, they wisely maintained off site backups of data.  Second, and the point of this story, M&M had worked with IBM partner Four Js and Informix Genero technology to cloud-enable its software in preparation to expand its business.   M&M was able to quickly give the client access to its software on the M&M cloud environment; restore the backed up data; and provide the capabilities it needed to take care of patients and run its business.

Cloud technologies expand market opportunity

Silanis is the world’s largest and most experienced E-Signature provider, with clients in insurance, banking and government.   In order to expand into new markets and reach a broader customer-base beyond on-premise enterprise customers, Silanis implemented an on-cloud solution.   Taking this approach saved Silanis time and up front costs of setting up its own data center to power its business expansion strategy.  Now new clients, such as a small mortgage provider that could not have deployed a complete on-premise environment, are able to offer e-signature services to accelerate their processes and attract and delight new clients.  Another example is this story about state government contract signing in the Cloud.

e-SignLive™ is a cloud-based e-signature service integrated with IBM’s LotusLive cloud-based collaboration platform  (Note: this was prior to LotusLive joining the IBM SmartCloud portfolio).   In addition to providing the collaborative e-signature services via the Web, this solution takes advantage of both WebSphere Application Server and DB2 as platform services in the Cloud.

Clear business values of the Cloud 

So there it is, two clear business values of the Cloud for solution providers:

1. new business continuity solutions through greater deployment agility
2. opportunity expansion through faster and lower cost access to software

For those of you who get challenged about “the Cloud” being over-hyped,  I recommend using stories like these that show real business solutions that lower cost, reduce risk and expand revenue opportunity.