Here’s a twist: When choosing a cloud-based application like Salesforce.com, why not address the inevitable billing issue at the same time?
That’s what Barrett’s Xplornet business did recently as it rolled out Canada’s first national 4G network. Xplornet is both fixed wireless and satellite. The company built its own fixed wireless network infrastructure and support environment and has capacity on some satellites. It is planning to launch high-throughput satellite links later this year through arrangements with ViaSat this year and Hughes next year, as part of a hybrid approach.
The company’s CIO, Cathy MacDonald, spoke with B/OSS Editor Tim McElligott on the reasons for the decision to look to cloud-based Zuora for billing and Salesforce.com for customer management.
B/OSS: You have worked in much larger environments such as with Rogers Communications. How is working with Xplornet different and why is going with cloud-based applications the right choice now?
Cathy MacDonald: There are differences in terms of the size of the organization; at Rogers we had over 2 million wireless customers at one time. What we don’t need to worry about now using cloud is the whole infrastructure piece, which really takes away a key piece of complexity, like making sure the hardware is configured properly and will be responsive.
B/OSS: Is this your first foray into the cloud environment? If so, what were your concerns going in?
CM: Yes. This is new for sure. We did our research so we knew that being cloud, you don’t control your data centers. So there’s always that. So you need to make sure you feel comfortable with the availability of applications, the failover capabilities as well as disaster recovery and business continuity. But the fact is, we always think about this. And we think of it now as a multi-tenant environment where we are only one apartment in the building and we know the vendors. Both Salesforce and Zuora are worried about not just us, but all their other clients as well. And they have a good record in terms of availability. That’s one of the main things you worry about going off into the cloud.
B/OSS: What about security? Was that of particular concern, especially for a billing environment?
CM: You do need to be quite concerned about security and billing information, but the vendors we are dealing with have done a lot to ensure their environment is secure. For a company our size, I would rather put my money into a company that is bigger and worrying about security already and let them worry about it for us. We can’t necessarily afford to have a security specialist on board. These two players have a good reputation. In some outsourced scenarios you are still responsible for managing the environment, but these guys can afford to have the right expertise to ensure a secure environment. And it is much more cost-effective.
