Instead, purchase your software from one provider, but have a direct relationship with the host. Some of our customers are starting to do this with us and Zimbra. Zimbra is sort-of like Google docs, but open source, and they host it with us, and backup to a third-party host (which is cheap to do).

Good for resellers too

Managing the backup and hosting process might be a new way that resellers can differentiate their offering or add value to the supply chain as more and more businesses look to protect their data as they move to a Cloud Computing model. Ensuring ease of data migration between cloud providers is paramount for businesses moving forward.

By not being tied to one provider, a business could easily migrate to another host, or if Zimbra becomes unsupported, for example, they would not lose their data, and we would carry on hosting while they work with us to find a new software solution. If we fail, they still have their data and Zimbra can help them get set up again. We (the managed hosting provider in this example) would not own their data even if we did fail, but no harm in belt-and-braces.

Hosting commoditisation is here

Software providers cannot realistically compete in today’s commoditised hosting market place, and instead should stick to their strengths. This also applies to migrations – when moving customers between hosts there are now companies that specialise in the migration itself but have no interest in selling software nor hosting. One such company is SEM Solutions, with whom we have recently started working.

Another big win from supply chain disintegration is that you gain total price transparency; no more getting stitched up by one provider who is just whacking a huge mark-up on a commodity service like hosting (yes, I’m talking to you, local government CIOs .

Not only does it show you which bits cost what, thus allowing you to compare with the market rates, but disintegrating the supply chain also makes migration to a new Cloud / managed hosting provider easy since you just need to work with the software supplier to migrate to the new host, and are not tied in to one provider. Equally, since you own the data on the service (because you are buying the hosting direct), moving to a new software provider is greatly simplified.

Eating my own dog food

So, do I take my own advice? Yes; Memset is one of the fastest growing technology SMEs in the country, and all our business critical information and systems are hosted in the Cloud (or at least our little bit of it) and accessed over the Web. None of my staff have Microsoft Office, we do not pay for any software, and we do not need servers in our office for administration applications. Everyone has a laptop, and since all our systems and documents (we use a Wiki for the latter) are hosted online everyone can work from home without the complications of a VPN. We do not use any paper for internal communications either, thus minimising “the printer has broken” type problems.

We also use Trac project management and documentation management system for all our internal documentation, task and project management. It is free and simple to host yourself with any managed hosting provider. Simple, scalable systems like Trac have also made it easy for us to obtain and maintain our quality, security and environmental management systems (ISO9001, ISO27001 & ISO14001 accreditations).

It was a moment’s work to kill off the torrent site, and I sent a gentle email to the customer in question suggesting that they might like to take advantage of our Perimeter Patrol™ security services. He was a lucky one – many of our customers only decide to get us to manage their server’s security for them after a major, and damaging intrusion, but in their case no harm was done. There are plenty of commercially-run sites as well; it is not all just hackers stealing others’ bandwidth, and peer-to-peer file sharing is constantly growing especially as home broadband connections become ever-faster.

There is an on-going battle on the encryption and encoding front too. Just recently in The Register I heard that someone has already cracked the new HD DVD’s anti-rip system; embarrassing in the extreme for the HD DVD format’s supporters. The problem is, at a simplistic level, if you can play it then you can copy it. There are simply no two ways about it, and I for one think the music and movie industries are fighting a battle they cannot win, and should be taking a different approach entirely.

I am hardly innocent myself; I am quite a fan of allofmp3.com (a Russian mp3 site that purports pseudo-legality), but in my defense I primarily use it for getting good quality rips of CD’s and tapes I already own and therein, I think, lies a potential savior of the music industry. People like me do not want to be criminals, and we are also quite happy to pay a modest fee for a convenient service. I could have just ripped my CD’s for free, but I preferred to pay a few dollars and not faff about with disks etc.

Traditionally, a major cost for the media industries has been distribution, but the Internet renders that tiny. I am no expert, but I am pretty sure the music industry could make good money even at a small fraction of the current prices, say 10-20p per track. If combined with a really good interface most people would be quite happy to pay rather than mess about trying to download dodgy mp3′s.

In fact, it might even allow the music industry to sell a lot more thanks to being able to make “smart suggestions” based on what other users with similar tastes also like – there are already examples of such systems out there. Equally, such a model would be a great boon to small-time artists who currently have a nightmare getting their material heard since there would be minimal costs associated with getting your music listed, and if it was good then the “smart suggestions” system would auto-promote it. Everyone wins. Hmm, why am I giving out potentially-killer business ideas to the world?

However, this all powerfully reminds me of a sub-text to an excellent book I read last year by Peter F. Hamilton, Misspent youth. It portrays a world where ubiquitous high-speed connectivity and massive personal storage capacities have rendered copyright impotent, and the professional production of new novels, music and movies ends. Such a future seems, at times, chilling near.