Forever Modern" software for lower cost"

Today I'm listening to Infor's executive team talk about their success in the cloud.  Infor focuses mostly business systems, but I can't help but wonder how much longer industrial discrete manufacturing and continuous process companies will continue to prefer more costly, less flexible, less secure, obsolete on-premise software in the plant.  Infor's customers are increasingly deciding to stop paying annual software maintenance fees, and instead get the same or more functionality with a cloud solution.  They enjoy 'forever modern' software, at lower cost.  Why lower cost?  Customers almost always grossly underestimate how much they are currently paying to support their software.  They think they can run it cheaper - but they can't.  They think they can do it more securely - but they can't.  And they are beginning to realize it.

Infor's cloud business is growing dramatically, but it's not just because the marketplace is somehow 'ready' for the cloud.  It's also because Infor has done the work to build a modern cloud solution that addresses customer's concerns and reservations.   Their cloud solutions are designed for multi-tenancy, scalability, high availability, autoscaling, no local device dependency, no source code changes, to meet patching/upgrade requirements, and to support health check monitors.   It's not simply about 'hosting' existing applications in the cloud. 

Security is often the reason given for not moving to the cloud.  While there are cases in industrial plants where security concerns translate to concerns about the possibility of catastrophic physical damage, there are other areas where the security need is little different from business system requirements.  ERP customers also have critical information to protect, but with proper design and implementation, testing and product release processes, and provision for local privacy and compliance requirements available in cloud solutions, they are moving to the cloud. 

So what's the reason for industrial companies to choose a more expensive, less secure, increasingly obsolete approach to software in the plant?  Habit?  Where's the business case for that?

Posted in IIoT and I4.0 Viewpoints