Infor heralds customized clouds

MANILA, Philippines - Not only businesses are in constant flux; even the way they can conduct business is.

Cloud computing, for instance, has opened new horizons in convenience and efficiency for contemporary, tech-savvy firms. This “on-demand delivery of IT resources and applications via the Internet with pay-as-you-go pricing” has a variety of advantages for enterprises.

According to Amazon Web Services (AWS), a provider of cloud solutions, companies employing the cloud save on server and data center capitalization cost, benefit from economies of scale, eliminate guesswork on infrastructure capacity needs, increase speed and agility, save on cost to run data centers, and easily go global.

Infor is helping enterprises of all sizes realize the benefits of cloud (or even on-premise) computing through a wide suite of industry-specific applications and suites. You read that right: industry specific.

With over 73,000 customers in some 200 countries and territories, Infor giving customized tools for distinct needs. Its CloudSuite platform of the latest software and cloud-enabled solutions keenly addresses needs in the following verticals: food and beverage, fashion, industrial manufacturing, healthcare, business, hospitality, aerospace and defense, and automotive. Infor ties in with AWS, which, said Infor VP for ASEAN Helen Masters, “has the best and most advanced cloud infrastructure in the world,” while Infor “is the first industry cloud solution company. It’s about putting in solutions specific to industries.”

Infor recently held an industry forum in the country, which obviously underscores the importance of the Philippine market. Indeed, Masters cited a robust 66-percent year-on-year growth for Infor business in the country – a number the company will look to boost even further with the continued acceptance of cloud computing in companies big and small.

The Asean region, added Masters, is the “fastest-growing market” for Infor. “If Asean was a single economy, we’d be the seventh largest economy in the world with a combined GDP of $2.4 trillion,” she said.

With already over 300 customers in the Philippines and a complement of 1,100 staff, Infor is expecting further growth as local companies get turned on to the concept of cloud computing.

“We’re finding the Philippine market actively wanting to take that step forward,” Masters revealed at a separate press conference. “There are some areas, because some of the infrastructure challenges here, that’s holding some of the customers and prospects back. But I think that the government is looking to invest… in improving infrastructure.”

That’s good news for CIOs that are not looking to buck a trend that clearly shows the cloud as among the top priorities in the workplace.

Assured Leo Valaris, Infor director for CloudSuite Solutions in Asia Pacific and Japan: “We include implementation accelerators for industries… so they can make their investment pay sooner.”

Asked by The STAR if the company is looking at public-sector clients in the Philippines, Masters said that Infor is “still investigating” on how much they need to “localize” in order to meet requirements. Nonetheless, she insisted: “I’m seriously looking at bringing healthcare solutions here. (The demand from) government and a lot of privately owned healthcare firms is starting to rise, and we’ve had a number of inquiries on our healthcare solutions.”

One of the key concerns when dealing with state-level clients is data sovereignty, where the location of saved data or information can be an issue. Infor is aware of this and other sensitivities, and assures clients public and private that they have the adroitness to meet specific parameters. The company has security people working with AWS to address concerns.

“And we still offer on-premise, so we have that flexibility for customers,” maintained Valaris. “And if we can’t deliver a cloud-based solution, we’ll deliver exactly the same solution on-premise.”

As for security concerns (particularly in the light of very public breaches), Valaris asserted: “Security is a shared responsibility, so AWS will deliver for us infrastructure-level security and very advanced frameworks, we’re responsible for the application-based security frameworks, and of course the customer is also responsible for their own.” The Infor executive also noted that many of the “hacks” tend to happen from inside or are an offshoot of “very lax procedures.”

Still, Infor remains bullish on the prospects of the cloud, a process that Valaris called a “paradigm shift.”

He also observed that in decades past, people wanted to bring the technology experience in the office to the home. Nowadays, it has reversed. “What we’re trying to do is replicate that home experience to our users at work. I think that’s a fundamental shift in the way that software is presented and delivered.