I got a call last week from a customer of a long time friend and competitor which made me stop and think about the ethics of his company.  The tone of the conversation was straight to the point – be honest with me, is this be best decision for my company?  It was an interesting conversation to say the least, but it boiled down to whether or not their entire infrastructure should be replaced, upgraded  and critical services outsourced to their “cloud” network.

Anyone who knows me knows I am not a fan of upgrading unless there’s a compelling business reason to do so.  What’s more, I completely disagree with upgrading purely for profit reasons at the expense of your customer.  The cloud is the latest buzz word which has entirely too much confusion, mis-information and profit potential rolled in which does nothing but confuse and excite the uninformed consumer.  There are many factors to consider before outsourcing critical services (e-mail, database, storage and processing) which require in-depth analysis and are beyond the scope of this message.

At the end of the conversation, the decision was made to keep the infrastructure as is until a complete analysis and recommendation can be completed (by my company).  Once complete, a formal project plan will be put in place to correctly and successfully upgrade with the company’s best interest in mind.

If your current tech company is pressuring you to upgrade, outsource or off-load components of your infrastructure to them (and lock you down), obtain a second informed opinion before making any decisions.