SHARE The pandemic drove cloud and as-a-service consumption models into countless companies. The need for on-the-fly flexibility continues as uncertainty about the future hangs over many. So is it the end for on-premises hardware? Actually, plenty of companies plan to stay on the hybrid track they had mapped out before COVID-19. Can providers take the parts of as-a-service they’ve come to love and graft them onto hardware? “There are new levels of unpredictability that have been accelerating this adoption of as-a-service,” said Alyson Langon (pictured, left), senior manager of product marketing at Dell Technologies Inc. “[Companies] don’t want to make big upfront investments in infrastructure when they’re having such a hard time forecasting their needs.”