Four Things Businesses Suck At

Design. Costs. Operations. Risk.

Most businesses suck at these things.

At least that's what Chris Crosby told me during a recent visit to the SMN offices here in beautiful Huntington, Long Island.

Crosby is senior vice president at Digital Realty Trust, a company that provides data center facilities “between the do-it-yourself guys and the full providers.”

At the design stage, Crosby noted that companies leave out business decision-makers. That's unfortunate, he said, because the designers want to create elegant solutions that might not factor in cost, and-worse-might not meet the company's needs. And, of course, there's always the question of “Will it work?” Meanwhile, business people are left to determine the risk of a project without really grasping the complexities involved, or being able to see that what they perceive as complex might actually be a relatively simple matter to implement.

“What makes IT think it can build a data center?” Crosby wondered. “Look, planes are important to FedEx, but they don't build 'em. We try to boil it down to a business decision” for prospective customers.

As for risk and cost, Crosby debunked recent studies that advocate moving data centers to remote parts of the United States, so as to not be terror targets and to take advantage of lower utility costs. He noted: “When you have to fly a guy out there to do anything, you lose that cost benefit pretty quick.”

Not to mention that before 9/11, one of the biggest terror attacks in our nation's history happened in Oklahoma City.

-- David Rubinstein