We are being told by our account rep, that there aren't any "on premise" customers on version 11, Cloud Suite. Is anyone on Cloud Suite, and if so, are you hosted in the cloud or on premise? If you are in the cloud, how often is there downtime for patches, etc. Have you experienced any outages? How is response time in the system? When you have a problem, is it difficult to get the proper support from Infor? Infor is making it sound as if there are too many updates to keep up with, to continue being on prem, and it is so, so difficult to support, that us customers are just not smart enough.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
As a long-long time Lawson user I equate 'cloud suite' back to the days where they pushed for us all to be hosted and eventually they saw that enough of the client base wasn't going to go along with that so they backed off the marketing push and everything that was offered in the hosted world was offered as a on-premise option. I expect the same will hold true with version 11. From what I've seen 11 is mostly just additional available products in the Landmark instance and at least at this point our organization is perfectly happy sticking with our core S3 apps and just a few products running on the Landmark server that is also on premise. At the end of the day it's all about money and if the client base won't move to cloud and they want to sell the Landmark products than they will have to offer it. Right now there isn't anything in CouldSuite that we really want anyway. Your mileage may vary.....
I'm working with a client and we are installing and On-Premise version of Infor OS v12 and CloudSuite GHR. We partnered with ICS to assist us with this effort and we've learned a couple of things from this experience.
With regards to running your systems in the cloud, it's important to know that "cloud" is just a rebranding of a concept called distributed computing. While there are abundant client examples and stories of Infor Clients who have enjoyed success moving to the cloud, there are an equal amount of examples where clients are unhappy with the move or have abandoned the effort all together due a variety of valid factors. If your in house IT department has met or exceeded your expectations with regards to support, service and system availability, you will most likely find the move to a cloud situation to be a negative experience as you'll not see the same singular customer focused effort on the part of the Cloud Vendor. If your company has underfunded your IT department, not invested in keeping current with hardware or software releases and more importantly has failed to invest in continuing education for the inhouse IT staff, you'll probably have a better experience with the cloud.
As far as cost savings, again, there are plenty of independent studies that support the position that a move to the cloud yields significant cost savings. There are an equal number of studies that support the On Premise model as being the most efficient and wise investment of their IT dollars.
Look very carefully at Infor's cloud offerings before making your decision. Go to the Local Infor user meetings/conferences, talk with Infor clients who have made the decision to move to the cloud and those who opt to stay on premise. If possible, try to focus in what it best for your company, operations and employees from a customer support standpoint and not on cost savings or cost outlay. Ask Infor for both references from clients who have opted to move to the cloud and those who are opting to remain on premise. Arm yourself with as much information as you can. Doing this, will hopefully prepare you to the make the best possible decision for your company.