> The problem will be finding skilled labor. I think that overstates the problem. It does not require a whole pile of skill to purchase a few rack mount serve

> The problem will be finding skilled labor. I think that overstates the problem. It does not require a whole pile of skill to purchase a few rack mount servers from Dell or Supermicro with onsite 24 hour warranty, and plonk them in a co-lo. In the rare event the hardware does break ring Dell and ask them to fix it for you. When the onsite warranty end's in 7 years it's time to replace the servers. The expertise required it literally minimal - not much beyond the ability to use a screw driver to install it into the rack and know how to connect the Ethernet cables. Then you have to plug in a USB and install whatever OS you want, of course, but you don't have to be onsite to do that. They all come with iDRAC's or the equivalent. They will cost about $1000/yr with maybe 10TB raid disk, co-lo costs of around another $1000/yr for unlimited bandwidth. To rent the same dedicated metal is about $500/mo from OHV where I live, so over twice the cost. Obviously, this is all impossible if you aren't big enough to have dedicated IT staff. And obviously, if you are likely to go through rapid change (well, something more extreme than adding a new server every now and then), it isn't the best plan. But for a stable mature business that employs several hundred people, all you are really doing is cutting out the middle man.