Oracle and SAP ARE big software, but for how long? Choked by the cloud, or death by a 1,000 cuts

The Register

...Fewer companies ask ‘Why cloud?’. Now they ask ‘Why not cloud?’

Two such areas are sales force automation and human capital management, both focuses for Appirio, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based cloud integrator that has helped over 500 companies implement SaaS applications from Salesforce.com, Workday, Google Apps and Cornerstone. These are not small companies, either, says Lori Williams, Appirio’s general manager of European operations. They include coffee chain Starbucks, beauty firm L’Oreal, pest control company Rentokil and automotive giant Toyota.

“Over the last year we’ve seen fewer and fewer companies here asking ‘Why cloud?’. Now they’re asking ‘Why not cloud?’ instead,” says Williams. “It’s about seeing value early from SaaS applications, rather than in 18 months or 24 months with an on-premise implementation. Big companies that are looking at a Salesforce or a Workday have baggage from previous systems that they’re trying to move away from. They’re looking for a different way. They’ve lived through the legacy way - the big, legacy, on-premise projects with lots of people and lots of money involved.”...

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