Re: Are they really doing things we couldn't – and don't – do ourselves?
Every business is doing everything to make a profit, but it is still a better deal.
An analogous situation is asking if you can build a car with ordered parts as well as Toyota, Nissan, etc. Could you build a working car? Sure, assuming you have automotive skill. You are never going to get the volume pricing as low as the major auto makers though, even with the automakers profits built in, and they have the process of building the car nearly fully automated for cost and quality. Even if you build your car, now it is on you to do all of the break-fix. You can call the parts suppliers if something breaks, but they are just going to say the problem isn't with their part (see EMC, Cisco, HP, etc support).
or another one is that everyone is already a cloud network user through your teleco provider. For some reason everyone would scoff at the idea laying fiber between their sites instead of using an MPLS or the like from their teleco because the cost/complexity of laying fiber is high, yet they think it is perfectly reasonable to build data centers at tens of millions in cost. Everyone gets the cloud value proposition with respect to their network, just because they are accustomed to thinking of their network as being run by a teleco. The way it has always worked.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
