CAPEX no longer an immovable object

When it comes to new infrastructure, capital investment has long been seen as an immovable object. Whether it is transport, utilities or IT, taking a conventional approach to infrastructure requires CAPEX. This brings with it the often tricky question of financing.

Recent years have seen the phenomenal growth of cloud computing. The cloud really took off when the credit crunch strangled the supply of capital. This led those that needed to replace obsolete and legacy IT systems to turn to innovative cloud solutions which require little or no capital funding. The business model includes payment by monthly subscription, effectively shifting IT from the CAPEX to the OPEX budget.

The majority of companies now use cloud ‘point solutions’, in the form of SaaS software such as Salesforce for CRM, Basecamp for project management, or Office 365 for productivity. However, the capability of the cloud reaches far beyond point solutions. In what is perhaps its purest expression it enables a business to put its entire IT system in the cloud.

Hosted Desktop from secure cloud an irresistible force

Hosted Desktop is a solution that enables a business to provision for its entire IT capability from the cloud. For many, Hosted Desktop is an irresistible force because it makes business sense, strategically, operationally and economically.

Take for example a business with 50 users, on-premise servers, storage, and backup and a single hands-on IT person – ‘a one-person IT team’.

• The IT estate is funded by CAPEX and has ongoing costs for licensing, maintenance and upgrades of server infrastructure as well as desktops/laptops
•  ‘A one-person IT team’ needs a wide range of skills and detailed, complex technical knowledge; often this person is overwhelmed, operates reactively and may be demotivated

Hosted Desktop enables the entire system to be migrated to a secure private cloud where all data and software would be maintained by a Managed Services Provider (MSP). This would include all licensing, upgrades, backups, support and highly effective Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity planning. The cost would be equitable with the costs of the on-premise system without the CAPEX, headaches, and stress.

With this scheme in place the ‘one-person IT team’ is able to adopt a more strategic or customer-facing role, adding value rather than simply firefighting.

Red Snapper Group case study

The case study ‘Secure cloud and high-value support enable Red Snapper Group to operate with confidence in sensitive markets’ provides a detailed look at how a Hosted Desktop solution transformed technology provisioning for a complex, growing mid-sized business with several subsidiaries.

This effectively enabled Red Snapper Group to obtain a completely new secure cloud system for zero CAPEX with just one monthly fee to cover all software licences, hardware, and data centre costs, as well as high-value support.

Click here to read the case study.