Salesforce hosted a convention in New York today called Cloudforce 2011. I wasn’t able to get to New York for it, but thanks to a streaming video feed on Facebook, I was still able to attend. The world is getting smaller everyday thanks to cloud computing, social media, and the ingenuity of companies like Salesforce.
Keynote speaker Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, said during his opening, “If it’s about hardware, it’s not about the cloud. If it’s about software updates, it’s not about the cloud.” Of course the convention is about much more than just what cloud computing is, but that quote is priceless.
When was the last time you had to update your Facebook software, or upgrade your processor to run the program effectively? You’ve never had to, because your computer doesn’t run Facebook, it just connects to Facebook, and they do all the work.
While our Telax Hosted Call Center solution doesn’t exactly have much to do with Facebook, our users have some of the same advantages Facebook users have. Our customers don’t worry about software updates, or hardware upgrades. We do all that, leaving out customers with plenty of time to spend on other things, like improving their company image through social media.
Yesterday, we heard from Cisco that cloud traffic is set to expand by 12 times. Reading about that and listening to speakers at Cloudforce has made me wonder if a day will come when the only computer available is a thin client: a machine that needs only a minimal amount of software installed.
Think of it this way. Tax time is coming up. I’ll be buying Quick Tax (called TurboTax now). I’ll also have to uninstall last year’s version. What if I could do my taxes through the cloud. I could buy a connection key instead of the actual software and save myself a fair amount of time, time I could spend ensuring I get the best tax refund possible.
Whatever your company does, there are many ways to take advantage of cloud computing and many more ways to come.
Tags: call center software, cisco, cloud computing, cloudforce, facebook, marc benioff, salesforce, telax, telax hosted call ceter