New Zealand-based industry observer Darren Greenwood recently wrote an opinion article arguing that the 'local cloud' might be a 'happy compromise' for places like New Zealand.
'We do not want our best and brightest heading to Singapore, Texas or wherever, in even greater numbers than they currently do,' he says. 'It could be a real issue for both Australia and New Zealand. It's also a security issue, because it means less control.'
He builds a convincing case for the argument that cloud is currently siphoning off a lot of talent. 'Rackspace is a big Texas company gone global, and is a larger version of Auckland-based Revera, which also operates in Australia. Despite having customers in Australia, Rackspace prefers to keep the work in America.'
And IBM (News - Alert), he notes, is building a huge data center in Auckland, due to open next year in the Land of the Long White Cloud, the indigenous Maori people's name for New Zealand. But this is an anomaly, as most such places are in America.
Greenwood recounts a Microsoft (News - Alert) official telling him that they host their cloud in Singapore. 'Such regional or globally-based services means it gains economies of scale and can offer all kinds of wonderful things at a great price, even to smaller organizations in Australia or New Zealand.'
That's all well and good, but as Greenwood writes, 'the more work the cloud giants can draw from here, the more intellectual property they capture and the more IT professionals they'll attract. And if there's less to work on here, why stick around?'
He touts the 'local cloud,' citing the fact that call center off-shoring is now starting to come back home: 'Kiwi company Greenstone Energy announced the
return of its call centre back to New Zealand. As well as having 'Kiwis talking to Kiwis,' it… will bring significant savings in IT and telephony costs.'
Besides, this American currently living and working in New Zealand can attest that if more Yanks knew about living here, we'd have more help than we need.
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David's articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.
Edited by Juliana Kenny