Is the cloud about CAPEX or OPEX ?

Is the cloud  about OPEX or CAPEX ?

As many of you will think it's of course about CAPEX. One of the basic principles about cloud computing is that cloud-services are typically monthly based per user or another unit and avoid for an organization capital expenditure. A welcome gift in difficult economic times for an organization.

Imagine you can use an enterprise ERP system including all functionality in no matter of time and only paying a small amount per user per month ? Before an organization needed to invest heavily in software licenses and server infrastructure before it could. Even start using the solution. So for small organization with limited financial. Means the cloud is definitely about reduction of CAPEX.

But what about large organization, which have the proper means to invest in software licenses and Datacenter infrastructure ? Why would they benefit from the cloud ?

Well large organization are interested in reducing their recurring (operational) costs. they want to optimize their costs as much as possible and they are also looking towards cloud solutions for that. Not to avoid capital expenditure but to optimize their daily support by using standardized and automated Ict services from the cloud with self-service capabilities for their employees. So for large organizations the cloud is about reducing OPEX !

Conclusion is that the cloud is about OPEX AND CAPEX ! And shows that it can be a benefit for all types of organizations.