Cloudonomics: The Business Value of Cloud Computing, + Website

Lock-in

A common issue that cloud skeptics like to raise is lock-in. One relevant dimension here is proprietary interfaces, processes, formats, and the like. Another is data transfer costs to retrieve a body of data stored with a SaaS provider or migrate it to a competitor. Yet another is legal issues regarding ownership of content that has been submitted: If you submit a video, photograph, or restaurant or movie review to a site, who owns the rights to the intellectual property?

It can be argued that much alleged lock-in has nothing to do with the cloud. Lock-in—that is, familiarity with processes or interfaces—may happen with cloud software, or with desktop software, or with mainframe software, or with keyboard layouts, spoken language, where a stamp needs to be placed on an envelope, how to use cruise control, driving on the right or left side of the road, or any random cultural anomaly. Are there costs to migrate from one cloud provider to another? Sure, but there are also costs to move from one licensed software package to another. The quest for any software developer, whether licensed package or SaaS, to differentiate its product through the introduction of new features, may have lock-in as an intentional strategy or as a by-product of innovation.