1. Business owner
has head in cloud
Venture lets others save
by outsourcing IT
by J. Craig Anderson
The Republic | azcentral.com
A growing number of Phoenix-area small businesses are
moving their computing needs to the “cloud,” according to the
owner of a Surprise-based Internet company.
Wayne Klug, president of Spectrum Technology Solutions,
said he started the company in 2009 to help
local businesses save money on information
technology.
Spectrum now has about 60 clients, and
Klug said he is expecting that number to
increase rapidly as more owners of medium-
size and small businesses become aware of
cloud computing’s cost-saving benefits.
Cloud computing comes in various forms
but generally involves the outsourcing of
information-technology functions to a third party that lets
customers access those services online.
For instance, instead of purchasing high-speed computers to
process and store data, a company can lease computing power
when needed from a third party whose high-speed computers
can be accessed online.
Software as a service, or SaaS, is one of the leading uses
of cloud computing, in which customers access software
applications using a Web browser instead of buying software
and installing it on desktops.
Klug said businesses that subscribe to cloud-based services
save money because they no longer have to buy expensive
computing equipment or software. Instead, they lease
computing, data-storage and software services on a per-use
basis, allowing them to scale up or down as needed.
“It’s really a game-changer as far as how it’s changing IT
departments,” he said.
Spectrum Technology is itself a small business, with just
five employees including Klug. He said the company is able
to provide cloud services affordably by partnering with a firm
called LevelCloud, a wholesaler of cloud-computing services.
Chad Trott, president of Phoenix-based El Sol Construction,
said he became a Spectrum Technology customer in October
2010 after realizing how much money he had spent on now-
obsolete Web servers and other high-tech equipment.
Trott estimates he has saved at least $45,000 since switching
to cloud-computing services. He said outsourced IT services
are particularly useful for the construction industry, which
tends to go through frequent boom-and-bust cycles.
“With cloud computing, you can grow and expand as
needed,” he said. “It’s really a dream come true.”
Klug said IT-industry analysts expect a mass migration
of businesses to cloud
computing by April 2014,
when Microsoft Corp. plans
to stop providing security
updates and customer
support for the Windows
XP operating system and
Microsoft Office 2003,
both of which remain
popular with businesses.
The end of support for
XP and Office 2003 means
businesses will have to
upgrade to new operating
systemsandofficesoftware,
he said, and switching to a
cloud-computing provider
will make that transition far less expensive.
A shift to cloud computing does have drawbacks, industry
analysts say. One problem is control. Companies using cloud
services are giving up a significant amount of control over their
data to an outside company. Another is security. Cloud-based
services require a constant, back-and-forth stream of data over
the Internet, which can be far less secure than working with
data inside a desktop or on a local-area network.
While some experts say the cloud-computing revolution
will be a big job creator, it has resulted in the downsizing of
many in-house IT departments and is expected to bring about
even more layoffs.
Still,arecentstudyledbyresearchfirmIDCofFramingham,
Mass., concluded that cloud computing would create more
than 1 million jobs in the U.S. by 2015, including about 14,000
in the Phoenix area.
Reach the reporter at craig.anderson@arizonarepublic.com
or 602-444-8681.
SUNDAY, JULY 15, 2012
Wayne Klug
Company
information
Name: Spectrum Technology
Solutions.
Type: Managed Web-hosting
and cloud-computing service
provider.
Founded: 2009.
Headquarters: Surprise.
Owner and president:
Wayne Klug.
Website: stsarizona.com.