ok - Cloud, as others have stated, is a term that has been completely abused as of late.
An easy, simple way to explain this is the difference between Microsoft Office and Google Docs. Microsoft Office (the traditional software) is a package you purchase, and then you have to install that software on your own equipment. When you run MS Office, you can be disconnected from the internet - BUT all the processing and data storage is provided by the computer that you're using. Google Docs, on the other hand, requires a connection to the internet to use, but no software is installed on the computer - instead, you access the software through a browser, and (in theory) you don't need a large amount of CPU to handle the processing, nor do you store the data locally - its all stored at the provider.
Now, thats the "true" definition of a "cloud" application. But what about JDE ? How is that "cloud enabled".
Lets look at the infrastructure from the beginning. Why is something called "cloud" needed - what is the benefits to a company ?
Well, EnterpriseOne requires a lot of hardware, CPU and storage. Its an expensive thing, running JDE, and there have always been customers that have balked at how much architecture is needed to be managed by ERP solutions. JDE is no different than other ERP software (in fact, in my opinion it requires a lot LESS hardware than many of its competitors) - and its just the bean-counters who balk at hardware and ongoing operation costs. But theres a big difference from a project and capital expenditure point of view to the cost of "starting" a JDE project.
So, one way to reduce the initial cost of hardware is to "rent" the hardware. Spread that initial purchase cost over a long period of time. IBM is one company that kind of created that method of "leasing" hardware, and of course JDE is historically close to IBM.
But what about the cost of storage - specifically backing up and restoring the data ? And what about the costs of maintaining the equipment - hiring system administrators, etc ?
Thats where the "Application Service Provider" model comes in. For a fixed fee, they purchase the hardware and maintain the equipment in a data center, charging the customer an "all inclusive" price. Sometimes, if a software company allows, that also includes the software. JDE dabbled with Application Service Providers since the late 90's and this has most successfully been done by companies like WTS (Velocity now). The "ultimate" of this is "Software As A Service (SAAS)" - which is where a company puts up a complete instance of the software, and hosts it on equipment - the customer "rents" the entire lot. In the end, the customer still owns the data - and the reliability of the platform is usually dictated by a contract.
So, then, what about "Cloud Computing" - how does that get into this model ?
If you are able to host a complete instance of, say, JDE on a server in a data center, then its also possible to host a NUMBER of instances of JDE on shared equipment in multiple data centers. By having a model where the customer connects to virtual address, where their application is being provided by servers that have incredible reliability, storage etc etc - then you're starting to become more "cloud" based.
Virtualization has provided the ability to deliver a "virtual" server across multiple physical machines - so that if a machine fails, the application is completely separated from that failure and continues to run.
The largest Public Cloud computing platform is Amazon Web Services. In that space, you can create a full "virtual" computing system that is capable of running JDE - but the physical hardware you're running on is unimportant, the virtual machine "floats" across multiple physical machines - so if there is ever any downtime on the physical layer, the virtual layer is completely unaffected. Now, if an ERP customer tried to replicate something like that themselves, they would find it to be extremely costly to achieve. It only becomes cost effective if the large amount of hardware (and therefore the cost) is shared across multiple customers. So, a company can provide a cloud-based virtual platform - install JDE onto it, and claim that they are providing "JDE in the Cloud".
Now, this model is still a customers purchased license, hosted on "virtual" hardware - but provides no difference to the customer as far as development is concerned. You remove the infrastructure operational costs, but still have the functional operational cost.
So, what about the "future" - or "True JDE Cloud" ?!
This would be an instance provided, supported and maintained by a cloud provider on a cloud platform. Think Google Docs for ERP ! The customer gets to use the application - but are not allowed to modify it in any way, and it is centrally supported and upgraded by the cloud provider. Now, there ARE applications that work like this (Workday, Salesforce, etc) - what could be conceived as "true" cloud software. But these applications are usually "new" to a company - how they are used dictate how the processes are configured for that company.
To take a software platform that is specifically meant to be modified to fit a business - and then try and host it in a "single" native manner - well, thats where you would have to create a "model" - and modify the business to fit that model. Its something that SAP has been able to do successfully, but its NOT something that JDE does well at all.
JDE has always been the "modify the software to fit the business" - and there aren't any "models" created to try and reverse that methodology. Now, there are some exceptions - for example, you could definitely take Financials, for example, host a true cloud version of Financials - and every customer would have to "fit" the financials model. Customers could then create custom reports over the financials - but no modifications to core code would be allowed.
But Distribution and Manufacturing aren't the same between companies. Companies use modules completely differently, and the power of JDE is that it allows the adaptability to how customers run their business. So outside of simple financials, JDE isn't a good fit for "true cloud" software.
ok - so back to Govs' original question - what is the value of cloud computing for JDE ?
JDE running IN the cloud (ie, using AWS to provide the infrastructure) can provide a huge financial advantage to a company. I have often been involved with customers that spend millions of dollars on infrastructure, sometimes YEARS before the first user goes live. With a cloud-based infrastructure, you can spread the cost over many years - and with a platform like AWS, you can "elasticize" the infrastructure, starting very small and gradually increasing the power to match the customers performance requirements. Running JDE on AWS is a slam-dunk for almost any customer and we should see more and more AWS implementations over the next few years.
But running JDE AS a cloud software ? It just doesn't work. Not for many traditional JDE customers - and, to be honest, there are a lot more solutions out there that compete at that level in much better ways.