Local cloud computing - competitive advantage

Research problem

Understand why local cloud infrastructure providers find it difficult to compete against larger providers.

Suspected behavioral symptoms:

• Information asymmetry - customers know much more about their environment than cloud providers
• Sunk cost - customers have already invested heavily in on-prem solutions or existing infrastructure

Questions/hypotheses

• What would make them competitive
• What blocks customers from choosing them
• What drives customer behavior
• What makes customers decide to have their own infra team

Research design

• Compare with history, starting with supercomputers, to desktop machines, to laptops, and then back to cloud
• Analyze environmental impact, what makes most sense from a global perspective to run such a business

Theory/literature

Method

• Porter's five forces analysis