Published on the 08/08/2016 | Written by Donovan Jackson
Whilst deploying SaaS applications may not be clear cut, when it comes to hosting infrastructure it’s a no brainer says latest Kiwi AWS partner…
Dynamo6 MD Igor Matich said he started his company because the ‘old world’ organisations with which he had spent most of his career just weren’t cutting the cloud mustard.
“It got to the point of ‘how do we shift to cloud’; with different sales cycles, different people [skills] you need, and, as a services business, the margins where you make money is different. These are inherent problems for companies going from old models to cloud and a lot of the ‘slowness’ in the industry derives from that,” he said.
Frustrated with the pace, Matich set up his business; it’s gone pretty well, as from its Hamilton base, Dynamo6 last week became the 15th AWS consulting partner in New Zealand and the first in the Waikato.
Matich feels strongly about the advantages of the cloud: “Any company which doesn’t have a cloud strategy, well, whoever is in charge of the technology is going to be out of a job. That’s a pretty hard statement, but the reality is, if you’re not [in the cloud], your ability to innovate and build services and experiences that matter to employees and customers is hampered.”
Of course, Matich is talking about infrastructure while Oracle’s Steve Miranda and XSOL’s John Blackham were talking applications. “You are wasting your time if you’re looking after infrastructure,” he reiterated.
Getting its AWS certification, Matich explained, was largely the result of moving Tainui Group on to the AWS platform and demonstrating its ability to handle the complex project. The diversified Maori investment company is, he said, now 100 percent in the cloud inasmuch as its infrastructure is concerned.
Moving to that model didn’t require any particular leap of faith on the part of that company, Matich said. “We’re beyond the early adopters phase now and into the fast followers stage. Tainui looked around the market and saw a bunch of companies, like for example Qantas, which had made the move, so it was a case of ‘if they can do it, so can we’.”
Matich reckons being precious about infrastructure and not leveraging global services means doing oneself a disservice. “And there is broader value add that can come from offloading infrastructure. But while it is all good saying ‘let’s move to the cloud’, you have to have someone who is a visionary. And typically, the move comes at the time of a major technology refresh, where companies look at the alternatives; the process of moving to the cloud is different for everyone.”
Asked if there is any discernable distinction between how companies in the regions approach their technology usage versus the city slickers, Matich said in his view there is perhaps a one to two-year lag in adoption. “Of course, that doesn’t apply universally. But awareness is pretty good, there’s a lot of cloud around the edges with organisations moving to services like Office 365 or Google Apps. Adoption is happening.”
Finally, Matich said having his company HQ’d out of Hamilton delivers a considerable advantage as overheads are lower, employees are happier as they don’t have punishing commutes and – thanks to the cloud – anywhere is an office. “There’s a change in experience. Knowledge workers want the flexibility of working anywhere and that’s applicable not just here in New Zealand, but internationally.”
