Google received a sceptical reception from CIOs for its cloud
computing services at the National Computing Centre's annual
conference.
Robert Whiteside, regional head of enterprise at Google Europe,
spent 30 minutes promoting the internet firm's commercial
credentials and cloud computing services. But the presentation
failed to convince many of the CIOs present of the benefits of
cloud computing.
"Cloud computing comes down to trust. Do I trust you with my
data? There are a lot of reasons not to trust big organisations in
recent years. I need to have the confidence you are going to look
after it. I just don't have that trust at the moment," said Dave
Felstead, IS director at the Forestry Commission.
Whiteside replied that Google's customers are taken through a
process of due diligence. Its services are independently verified,
he said. Google signs confidentiality clauses with customers. And
data its stored in US datacentres is protected from abuse by Safe
Harbour agreements.
But John Shmelit, deputy IT director at Imperial College, said
the college was worried about its intellectual property being
stored in a US datacentre. "We have been looking at Google, but we
don't know if our data would be safe because its an American
company. Microsoft has a datacentre in Europe. That's the debate we
are having internally."
Drew Cook, IS director of Staples UK, said he does trusts
external organisations with his data, but does not know whether he
could trust Google because he does not know enough about the
organisation.
Bogusia Webb, head of service strategy for the London Borough of
Tower Hamlets, said she would not be happy sending sensitive data
over the internet. "We won't be using cloud computing because we
hold citizens' information. Until there is greater scientific
evidence that there is tight security management on the internet we
will not be doing it because we would be exposed."
Ian Butterworth, head of IT at Midland Heart, one of the UK's 10
largest housing associations, said the trust would not be using
Google services yet, but probably would eventually. "There are a
lot of things that need to be checked out and that takes diligence
and time," he said.
Malcolm Moore, director of operations at the Cystic Fibrosis
Trust, said he liked Google's products, but had yet to be persuaded
about the cloud. "I don't think [Google] is going to sell my data,
but I just don't trust the web."
Felstead raised another reason for caution. "Cloud providers
should get together and put together some sort of insurance policy
so that if one of them goes under the others should pick up the
pieces," he said.
Whiteside had told delegates that cloud services were three to
five times cheaper than in-house IT and that they would remove the
stresses of managing technology, increase profitability, improve
customer satisfaction and give IT directors more time. He did not
think cost cuts would necessarily equate to IT job cuts.