Please Don’t Gild the Lily

I wrote the other day about the adoption of cloud based email services and the recent decision by one of the New Zealand Post business units to move to Google for their email provision.

I think it’s a great move, positive for the business and positive for cloud computing, but a post I came across today put so much spin on the move that I’m dizzy. I have to say that I know the guy who wrote this post who is young, passionate and eager – I’m not trying to pour scorn on what he said, rather I’m just mindful that we need to make sure that the messages we, as evangelists, give out are accurate.

The post quoted the CEO of the group as saying;

…Postal Services wanted to give its people productivity tools that supported a high performance business culture and made it easier for people to work more creatively, collaboratively and flexibly.

This is email – yes I think the move to the clouds is a great thing but the reality here is that this is an email application – there are good reasons for doing it (increased storage space, decreased IT spend etc etc) but I’m not sure it’s completely reasonable to stretch to stating that a move from self-hosted exchange to hosted Gmail drives collaboration, creativity and flexibility.

Our commentator then puts his own spin on things saying;

I applaud NZ POST for recognizing and showing leadership in developing proactive workplace enhancement projects like this… Its about working smarter, not harder.

Sorry – but this is email. Not some flash new enterprise wiki/collaboration suite. Not a microblogging platform that will open up the lines of communication. It’s email. Principally it’s an infrastructure outsourcing deal – pure and simple. We go on;

Allowing  their staff to work flexibly, to work with tool staff are familiar with will be a positive boost to their workplace culture.

Now this really interests me – I’d be prepared to wager that a huge proportion of the frontline staff affected by this change will continue to use Outlook at the front end via IMAP. As such I reiterate – this is primarily a deal to outsource infrastructure – all good but it’s not a major leap in workflow efficiency.

Today’s announcement is further proof of the cloud computing revolution – mature technology delivered the right way by a fast moving and important local channel partner

No disagreements from me here – it’s a good test case for cloud infrastructure. And also a good lesson that cloud infrastructure NEED NOT impact on workflow at all. People can continue to work the way they chose to.

Don’t get me wrong here – I believe that cloud computing is the way of the future. I use cloud email exclusively. I’m an evangelist for this stuff. But we do ourselves a disservice when we try and talk deals up beyond what they actually are. Please don’t gild the lily….