Cloud transformation is no longer a question of whether it will happen, but how and when. Yet for many organisations, cloud migration programmes feel increasingly compressed. Decisions are often shaped less by business strategy and more by hardware lifecycles, depreciation schedules, and vendor timelines.
This tension is not a failure of planning or execution. It is a structural reality faced by even the largest enterprises, and one that sits as much on the balance sheet as it does within the data centre.
Gartner forecasts worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services will reach $723 billion in 2025, with most enterprises operating hybrid environments for the foreseeable future. Cloud adoption is accelerating, but migration rarely progresses in clean, linear phases. Instead, it is constrained by competing financial pressures such as long-term data centre or colocation commitments, ageing infrastructure, and the timing of depreciation cycles. This results in a sense of urgency that can feel unavoidable, even when the underlying business case is not fully aligned.
In this environment, pacing matters more than speed.
Infrastructure, Timing, and Financial Control
On-premises infrastructure is often discussed in technical terms such as performance, resilience, and scalability. For CFOs, however, it represents deployed capital with a finite and declining value. As estates age, they exert pressure on financial planning through depreciation curves, write-downs, and the risk of stranded assets.
Hardware does not stop ageing during a migration. End of service (EoS) and end of life (EoL) milestones arrive regardless of programme readiness, often intersecting uncomfortably with cloud transition plans. When this happens, organisations are pushed into decisions that prioritise continuity over choice. Assets may be refreshed earlier than planned, OEM support extended at premium rates, or dual running costs accepted for longer than intended.
In practice, many organisations find themselves migrating on their hardware’s timeline and not their own.
Risk Avoidance, Hidden Cost, and the Hybrid Reality
Defaulting to OEM support is a rational decision. Teams are under pressure to guarantee uptime, reduce operational risk, and maintain accountability. It is understandable that OEM contracts remain the path of least resistance.
However, Gartner’s Market Guide for Data Center and Network Third-Party Hardware Maintenance recognises a mature and growing ecosystem of third-party hardware maintenance (TPM) providers delivering enterprise-grade support across data centre and network infrastructure. For many organisations, continued reliance on OEM support has become a structural habit rather than a conscious strategic choice. Over time, this habit can inflate total cost of ownership, narrow options, and accelerate refresh cycles, often without deliberate executive review.
Cloud migrations can therefore be technically successful while still underperforming financially. Extended dual running costs, premature refreshes, and prolonged depreciation schedules erode the innovation budgets cloud programmes are meant to unlock. This is not tension between finance and IT. Both functions are acting in the interests of the business. Without a mechanism to rebalance timing and cost, even well-intentioned programmes can lose momentum.
In this context, hybrid environments are not a compromise. Gartner’s research shows hybrid models are a deliberate and enduring strategy for most enterprises. Hybrid coexistence offers control. It allows organisations to sequence workloads, manage risk, and optimise spend, rather than forcing wholesale moves driven by arbitrary deadlines.
The Cost of Stalling and the Value of Choice
The greatest risk in modernisation is rarely a visible failure. It is erosion.
Value is lost gradually through extended contracts, duplicated environments, and delayed innovation funding. These costs often accumulate quietly, particularly in large enterprises where scale can mask inefficiency. Importantly, these patterns appear regardless of vendor choice. They are systemic rather than situational.
This is where third-party maintenance is being reassessed, not as a permanent alternative to OEMs, but as a strategic lever. IDC’s Maximizing IT Efficiency: The Strategic Shift to Third-Party Maintenance in 2025 highlights that a majority of organisations are now using third-party maintenance more than before to extend hardware lifecycles, reduce support costs, and create financial headroom during transitions.
Used selectively, third-party maintenance introduces optionality. It buys time, not to delay progress, but to improve decision quality. It helps organisations avoid forced refreshes, preserve cash, and align migration timing with business strategy rather than vendor schedules.
Across large and complex estates, a clear pattern is emerging. Organisations that manage modernisation effectively treat lifecycle management as a strategic discipline rather than an operational afterthought. They invest in understanding what they own, what it costs, and how long it can continue to deliver value. They decouple support decisions from migration milestones. They work with independent advisors who act as levellers, counterbalancing vendor urgency with commercial and technical realism.
This is where RTK offers clients maximum value; as an advisor that empowers enterprises to simplify, optimise, and accelerate modernisation journeys by restoring control over timing, cost, and choice, while keeping risk low and options open.
A Question of Alignment
CFOs and CTOs ultimately face a shared question:
Does your current support and migration model align with your long-term business strategy, or with your vendor’s roadmap?
If urgency is driven primarily by hardware lifecycles or default support models, the organisation may be reacting rather than leading. Aligning support, lifecycle, and migration decisions to long-term business strategy is not about slowing progress. It is about ensuring momentum is sustainable.
Hardware will age. Performance requirements will change. Upgrades will eventually be required. The difference lies in when those decisions are made and on whose terms.
The organisations that succeed are not necessarily the fastest to the cloud, but those that move with clarity, control, and choice.
