Nirvanix has supposedly told its enterprise customers that in two weeks it will be closing down its cloud storage service. This had to happen. it probably happens more often than we notice.

There are at least a thousand hosted VoIP providers in the US. There has to be several hundred data storage companies in the US as well. That's too many to survive in the marketplace.

On the one hand, how do you compete for storage with Amazon? Seriously. One company tweeted back to me with their special offer for anyone on Nirvanix. Yeah, that's the Problem! Too many companies that give it away.

It's like the BTOP and BIP broadband projects (including VT.net). Federal funds to build out infrastructure without a clear plan for a sustainable business model to keep the network spinning.

Customer Acquisition costs are just good to know; they are a must know.

How about the costs to maintain and delivery service (cost of goods)? Not a figure you want to guess at or fudge.

Churn is a statistic that will make you ill, but is a good indicator of many things like customer satisfaction and incoming revenue as well as how many sales you need to maintain revenue or grow.

More cloud companies will close down services. Many don't have a focus; they offer everything, like the Cheesecake Factory. If you look at the services you offer, you can find which ones are most profitable and focus on them.

It might be that your loss leading service is the jump on point for customers. But you won't know that without CRM, website analytics and customer surveys.

For the UCaaS providers who have added video, conferencing, blah, blah, if you can't track usage, how will you know if you even need to continue to supply those rather expensive components?

Run the numbers to make smart business decisions.