Software as a dis-service, or are you being served?

From the Pumping Irony Dept:

Just read on Nick Carr's blogabout the Amazin' Amazon S3 crash. Given that Nick is a great fan (and author of) the Software-as-A-Utility-Like Electricty schtick, it is of course interesting to see how he deals with this piquant petard

As someone who believes in the growth of the utility mode of computing, I feel compelled to point out the inevitable glitches that are going to happen along the way. How the supplier responds - in keeping customers apprised of the situation and explaining precisely what went wrong and how the source of the problem is being addressed - is crucial to building the trust of current and would-be users. When Salesforce.com suffered a big outage two years ago, it was justly criticized for an incomplete explanation; the company subsequently became much more forthright about the status of its services and the reasons behind outages.

I would put it more simply.....don't switch off the server in the backroom just yet, nor go for the pure Webservice model, no matter what the Enterprise 2.0 theorists may tell you. Their risk of getting it wrong is a "why we weren't right - yet" blog post - yours is a collapsed business.

To be fair, medium term I agree with Nick - its just this was far too good a post to resist