8.1.1. Which applications to move to the cloud
The discussion in the preceding sections makes it clear that there
remain a significant number of challenges that need to be addressed
before cloud computing becomes robust enough for large enterprises.
It is also clear that not all applications are currently ripe for moving to
the cloud. General-purpose applications (like office, email, collaboration
technologies) are prime candidates, since there are rarely any
instances of application requirements in such technologies that are
specific only to an organization. Standalone applications like the
popular CRM Salesforce.com might be easy to deploy on a cloud, but it
is a different proposition altogether to migrate a smorgasbord of
internally developed applications, third-party software and legacy
applications with all their intricate interdependencies to the cloud.
The cloud-based applications will also have to cross the threshold in
terms of security and reliability – either actual or perceived – of their
traditional counterparts.