Strength

• Cost: mutualisation of operations reduces the staff expenses and allows industrialisation
• Ease: implementation of the service can be automated through wizards which do no require much IT skills
• Reliability: industrialisation of operations can reduce failures in average
• Lead-time: delivery of infrastructure or service is accelerated through industrialisation

Weaknesses

• Network required: TIO services require internet access
• No offline standard: offline TIO tools are not standardised at all and their reliability is uncertain
• Few providers: TIO is still an emerging approach with few providers and little competition
• Lack of transparency: SLAs of TIO provider in the context of national Law completely lack transparency wrt. data access, privacy, service level
• Lack of reporting: operation of the TIO service does not generate enough reporting to clients wrt. to upgrade, staff screening, incidents, etc.

Opportunity

• Free TIO: Free Software can be the base of TIO services with much less weaknesses
• Transparent SLAs: transparent SLAs can create an opportunity for new business as long as IT managers understand why transparency is important
• Hardwareless TIO: virtualisation techniques create an easy path from open source to TIO

Threats

• Vendor lock-in: all kinds of vendor lock-in are put in place to create revenu streams at the expense of control
• Intrusion: intrusions on TIO infrastructure is either unnoticed or noticed and hidden
• Intelligence: intelligence services may have a right to force TIO provider to disclose information depending on nationa Law