The Cloud Makes It Rain Money: The Business in Cloud Computing - Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure - page 360

security requirements and administration management guidelines because they usually
deal with sensitive corporate data in either an in-house or public cloud setup.
Use of enterprise application service providers (ASPs) is quickly becoming prevalent. The
enterprise application is designed by a third-party ASP and leased to an organization as an
in-house or a hosted SaaS service. Organizations can also move the enterprise application
to the cloud so that services are delivered to the in-house computers and devices through
the Internet as an on-demand service. Another option is to choose the hybrid solution,
where cloud applications are integrated with in-house systems.
The following types of enterprise applications are among the most common:

Customer relationship management (CRM)

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Enterprise resource planning (ERP)

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Business intelligence (BI)

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Business continuity planning (BCP)

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Enterprise application integration (EAI)

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Automated billing systems

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Email marketing systems

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Messaging and collaboration systems

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Content management systems

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Payment processing systems

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Call center and customer support systems

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HR management

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Enterprise search

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Cloud Collaboration

An emerging method for sharing and coauthoring documents and files, cloud collaboration
uses cloud storage with customized permissions. Cloud collaboration technologies allow users
to upload, comment on, and edit documents, thus collaborating within the cloud storage.
The biggest advantage for enterprises is to have members of a team work simultaneously
on a particular task, thus increasing productivity. However, collaboration has become tech-
nologically complex with the need for team members to work in real time on a variety of
documents and using different devices.
Even though the cloud collaboration sector has been growing rapidly, it has reached a
point where is it less about the current technology and more about the choices and reluc-
tance of team members to collaborate in this way. In a report for Giga Information Group,
Erica Rugullies points out five reasons for reluctance to collaborate (“Overcome People
Related Challenges For Success With Team Collaboration Software” by Erica Rugullies,
Giga Information Group, 2003):

Resistance to sharing knowledge

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Preference for using email as the primary electronic collaboration tool

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