Steven Zolman

Jun. 15,2023 | Cloud, Azure, AWS, google, GCP, Cloud Negotiation

Preface Despite a pervasive industry need, cloud cost optimization has not yet lived up to its potential. Clients are continuing to suffer from cloud cost overruns and efforts to cut costs have been largely ineffective. So then, what is the future for cost optimization with cloud solutions like AWS, Azure, and GCP? Background Review our recent 3-part series on Cloud Costs: Take a look back at our recently completed 3-part series on cloud costs, where we detailed the top 5 price shock phenomena of cloud computing, and how those shocking prices were often caused by migrated workloads that turned out not to be well suited for cloud computing ...

Steven Zolman

Jun. 12,2023 | Cloud, Azure, AWS, GCP, Cloud Negotiation

Preface A big story in the first quarter of 2023, is that the era of hyper-accelerated cloud migrations, which has been causing unassailable growth for the major cloud computing providers, may be slowing. Last quarter, Amazon (AWS) posted 'the slowest growth in its history' at 27.5%, down from 33% the quarter before. Cloud Growth at Azure, and GCP is slowing too as customers get a dose of cloud 'cost reality' or what we like to call, Price-Shock. As it turns out, cloud deployments are not always cheaper than implementations on-premises, and many client organizations are determining that previous cloud-migrated workloads may not deliver the ...

Steven Zolman

May. 11,2023 | Procurement, Oracle, Audit, Negotiation, Cloud, Vendor Management

Ahh, May. The month itself is named after Maia, the Greek goddess of Spring - and it's easy to see why. In the emerald month of May, life begins anew as the grass turns green, new leaves come out on the trees, and flowers bloom. It is the season of hope, optimism, and renewal. Oops, did I just say renewal? Oh, that's right, May is also Oracle's fiscal year-end, and the busiest month of the year for your beloved Oracle reps as they scramble to sell new business and process your most recent hostage invoices (otherwise known as your annual maintenance service & support renewals). Instead of enjoying the greening of the great outdoors, many ...

Scott Braden

Apr. 25,2023 | Software, Microsoft, Cloud, AWS, google

This is part two of an ongoing series we call Debunking Microsoft where we address the ongoing disinformation, half-truths, and mysticism surrounding its own products as it relates to Customer licensing, usage, contracts, terms, pricing, and much more. In part one, we addressed what we frequently hear from clients which is that Microsoft has told them around using their own licenses in a cloud other than their own. Words to the effect of... “You can’t use your existing Microsoft licenses on non-Microsoft clouds such as Amazon or Google.” In part two, we deep dive into the licensing and product use terms that many Microsoft customers get ...

Steven Zolman

Apr. 16,2023 | Software, SaaS, Supplier Management, Cloud, Azure, AWS, google, Cloud Negotiation

Preface Thank you for joining us for this 3-part series on Cloud Costs, where we explore the Top 5 Price Shock Phenomenon’s of Cloud costs, resulting in part from the Top 5 Workloads that are NOT Well Suited for the Cloud, and largely resulting in the Top 5 Reasons Why Clients Are Repatriating previously migrated Workloads from cloud deployments back on-premises: Part 1 (Feb 15): Top 5 Price Shock Phenomenon’s of Cloud Costs Part 2 (Mar 15): Top 5 Workloads that are NOT Well Suited for the Cloud Part 3 (Apr 15): Top 5 Reasons Why Clients Are Repatriating Workloads (This One) Part 3: Top 5 Reasons Why Clients Are Repatriating Workloads In ...

Michael Welsh

Mar. 30,2023 | Software, SaaS, Oracle, Cloud

Oracle's financials have generally been strong in recent years with their aggressive cloud push, reporting steady growth in revenues and earnings. However, Oracle faces increasing competition from other cloud providers, particularly in the areas of IaaS and PaaS. Additionally, Oracle has been shifting its focus towards cloud-based services and away from its traditional software licensing business, which could impact its financial performance in the long-term. Read our series related to this starting with The Top 5 Price Shock Phenomena of Cloud Costs. In the very short term however, they have missed earnings targets and indicated on their ...

Steven Zolman

Mar. 16,2023 | Software, SaaS, Supplier Management, Cloud, Azure, AWS, google, Cloud Negotiation

Preface Thank you for joining us for Part 2 of this 3-Part series on Cloud Costs. Please reference the following 3 blogs to get the complete 2023 Cloud Cost Series: Part 1: Feb 15: Top 5 Price Shock Phenomena of Cloud Part 2: Mar 15: Top 5 Workloads that are NOT Well Suited for the Cloud Part 3: Apr 15: Top 5 Reasons Why Clients Are Repatriating Workloads Part 2: Top 5 Workloads NOT Well Suited for The Cloud Introduction Since the mid-2000s, clients have been migrating workloads to the cloud with increasing frequency, but recently, we have seen clients start to repatriate previously migrated workloads back on-premises, due in no small part ...

Scott Braden

Mar. 14,2023 | SaaS, Microsoft, Cloud

This is part 1 of an ongoing series we call ‘Debunking Microsoft’ where we address the ongoing disinformation, half-truths, and mysticism surrounding its own products as it relates to Customer licensing, usage, contracts, terms, pricing, and much more. In part one, we address what we frequently hear from clients; that Microsoft has told them regarding usage of their own licenses in a cloud other than Microsoft's.....words to the effect of “You can’t use your existing Microsoft licenses on non-Microsoft clouds such as Amazon or Google.” Well, that’s not true and Microsoft knows it. This is just one case of Microsoft’s constant and consistent ...

Steven Zolman

Feb. 17,2023 | SaaS, Cloud, Azure, AWS, google

Thank you for joining us for this 3-part series on 2023 Cloud Costs, where we explore the Top 5 Price Shock Phenomenons of Cloud Costs, resulting in part from the Top 5 Workloads that are NOT Well Suited for the Cloud, and largely emanating from the Top 5 Reasons Why Clients Are Repatriating Cloud Workloads back to on-premises: Part 1: Top 5 Price Shock Phenomena of Cloud Costs Part 2: Top 5 Workloads that are NOT Well Suited for the Cloud Part 3: Top 5 Reasons Why Clients Are Repatriating Workloads Introduction In today’s installment, we’ll discuss the Top 5 Price Shock Phenomena of Cloud Costs. Price Shock is a phenomenon that occurs when ...

Michael Welsh

Dec. 28,2022 | SaaS, Cloud, CRM, Salesforce

Salesforce has led the market for years. We have pointed to Salesforce as the culprit who broke the early promise of software as a service as (SaaS). SaaS was supposed to be elastic with demand allowing costs to go both up and down. Historically, we know that Salesforce is supportive of increases in their customers' cost but it has been punitive to reductions. With Salesforce’s fiscal year-end coming at the end of January 2023, now is a great time to re-evaluate your deployment and at the very least benchmark to see how your spend compares to the market. But first, more on Salesforce themselves…. Things 'they are a changin' in ...