Wait-and-See Approach to Cloud Adoption

It is interesting that higher education seems to be taking a wait and see attitude with cloud computing. Earlier posts suggest that the college and university environment would benefit from leading the transition to the next era of computing. Instead it appears higher education has selected a more conservative action: wait and see. The most interesting issue is we are in an era of economic downturn that has caused many states to take drastic actions to curtail costs, and higher education leaders are not taking advantage of proven solutions from industry leaders. I would suggest there are several reasons for this response:

1. CIOs are uncomfortable with a transition in technology that is controlled by the provider and the consumer, not the local IT organization. It is well documented that a university can offer state-of-the-art email to students at minimal cost to the institution. Universities like Arizona State, Notre Dame, Boise State, University of Maine, and Temple are successful, yet only 35% of universities are taking advantage of this offering. It is clear there are millions of dollars in savings being left unclaimed.
   
   
2. Universities are using security and compliance as the reason for not implementing cloud computing. This is a valid concern which has a number of documented solutions that are being ignored. The real problem is today’s universities are highly decentralized and the adoption of cloud services requires a comprehensive authentication infrastructure. It could be that the first hurdle to migrating to the cloud is the IT leader getting the university's security practices in order, having a disciplined security staff in place, and having best practices in place.
   
   
3. The Chief Academic Officer has not focused on the real savings that are available in using cloud resources. It is time for organizations providing leadership to the Presidents and Provosts to provide education and solutions to allow leaders to make the best choice for the institution. It is clear most CAOs have given total control of technology to the university IT leadership. Should funding issues continue, CAOs will be required to take charge if they want to realize the millions of dollars of savings available today and even more in the near future.

The next 24 months should be interesting to observe. Students are aware of what is available in today’s technology environment. Consumerization of IT is out of the box, and legacy practices will not dominate in the future. Attempts to control technology at universities has not been successful in higher education, and it will become even less so in the era of cloud computing.