Loudcloud Adopts The Zen Marketing ApproachLoudcloud Adopts The Zen Marketing Approach

Outsourcing service firm Loudcloud Inc., like other IT vendors, is finding that less really can be more. The company is splitting up its packaged services to generate more revenue.

Loudcloud has come this far by selling combined services such as security, transaction capabilities, and backup to newer companies, for the most part. But it's now going after established companies that have discrete holes in their infrastructures. Loudcloud is also mindful that it has lost business when some potential buyers balked at package prices from a relative unknown.

"That's part of the preferred style of a lot of IT buyers--to get comfortable with the service provider" before investing wads of cash, says Bill Martorelli, a Hurwitz Group industry analyst. Despite a tough economy, Martorelli and other analysts say distributed systems management is coming soon.

"This is the way of the future, really. The hybrid capabilities, the distributed computing where hardware is anywhere and software needs to manage it wherever it is," says Jeanne Schaaf, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Now, IT mangers have choices and flexibility. Especially the folks that already have things in place and now are just looking for somebody to help them make things better."

The company says that individual hosted services through Loudcloud can cost anywhere from $8,000 to $1 million a month, based on volume, number of CPUs needed, and other factors.