With the growth of the value of clouds for some IT solutions providers are beginning to take an interest in what exactly it meant. In the end, many of you have long offered clients to use host-applications, which, in essence, cloud services are under another name.

So you already know what are the benefits that are provided by cloud computing services to your customers: a small initial capital costs, or complete absence, pay only the actual services received, scalability and flexibility. For you, the main advantages of cloud services are a constant revenue stream, deep penetration in the business of clients and flexibility to tailor services to customer needs.

So if you have some time provide Hosted Exchange services with or related to backup and restore data, you are completely forgivable to ignore the talk about clouds as the next hype in the IT industry. Or unforgivable?

Enough to have in its arsenal, one or two services such as SaaS, although they could well help you prepare for the era of cloud services. Looking to the future, customers will increasingly move their infrastructure into the cloud. And if all that you can offer, is the e-mail host system, you face the loss of customers.

Since virtualization, private clouds and services based on public clouds every day are becoming more popular. IT has a long history of adaptations and innovations, and cloud is a important chapter in this story. If you skip this chapter, it can have fatal consequences for your business.

Large corporations such as Verizon and Google, end users are bombarded with advertisements on its cloud products. As this onslaught of more and more customers will be prepared to cloud computing and would like to have more services.

Fortunately for solution providers, you have plenty of options to create a full set of cloud services. Let’s say you have to offer Hosted services through Exchange. What can you supplement them? It makes sense to explore other products Hosted on Microsoft, such as server, database and maintenance of desktop systems, to create a cloud menu.

Of course, you are not limited to products of Microsoft, Cisco and Dell. You and all the solutions provider should also not be overly suspicious of large corporations. In particular, although Microsoft has achieved record sales through the channel, the manufacturer has caused some confusion among its partners on their role in providing cloud services, such as Azure and BPOS. However, Microsoft’s strategy in connection with the clouds deserves a separate article.

Solutions providers should also pay attention to host the infrastructure and services such as “platform as a service” (PaaS), as well as to private cloud using virtualization technology and reminding the public clouds, which allow you to take advantage of the cloud environment inside the network perimeter.

Many manufacturers also offer in addition to its virtual cloud product technical support. This means that you can give it to function manufacturer partners and focus on growing your business.

So when it comes to clouds, then, yes, there is no shortage of publicity. But this does not mean that solutions providers cannot simply ignore it and do its routine. Clouds are a source of change, and therefore require that providers of solutions once again adjusted to the ongoing large-scale shifts in the industry.