Cloud computing and the consumerization of business technology are on everybody’s list of IT trends. What strikes us, however, is how much they reinforce each other, particularly for smaller organizations. Consumerization primarily means the ability to use consumer devices and applications in a business context. The icon for this is the Ipad in the office, but it also applies to Macs, smartphones of all stripes, and Android devices.

Once Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is adopted in an organization because of consumerization, the problem becomes how to deliver apps to all of them with good user experiences. One way is via cross-platform remote access, but we’re finding that users aren’t always happy with their performance. The best solution, it seems, is to move to browser-based apps in the clouds, which always permits some kind of access from consumer devices and often has good access  because the cloud vendor makes the cross-platform effort.

The convergence works in the other way, too. Some organizations that wish to reduce costs by moving to cloud-based apps like Office 365 can sell them to users by talking about how they support work on any device from anywhere. In all, it’s a perfect storm.