Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Overview

Over the past few weeks, I have been speaking with a series of thought leaders in cloud computing. We will soon be publishing these in-depth interviews. Let me share a few thoughts with you based on what I have heard thus far across various conversations.

First and foremost, there seems to be a real interest in adopting cloud computing based on legitimate business value, not hype. IT executives are looking at real cost savings in important functions and are putting a variety of different workloads on the cloud.

Security remains a concern, but I am absolutely sure that over this decade, the concern will be addressed, with vendors providing strong security to meet customers’ needs. This, however, is not yet the case, and as such, security remains one of the primary barriers to adoption, as well as an interesting area for entrepreneurship.

In very large enterprises, some of the security issues are being addressed with a private cloud strategy. You will read more about it in my conversations with Pat Toole, CIO of IBM, as well as Ric Telford, vice president of Cloud Services, also at IBM.

Also, in general, my impression is that large enterprise customers are not in a hurry to adopt cloud-based ERP or CRM solutions. Too much integration investment has already gone into these legacy applications, and at present, there is no justification to move to the cloud. The adoption is happening more with non mission-critical, tier-2 and tier-3 applications.

As you read these interviews, it will become obvious that we’re dealing with an immature industry with lots of holes. Some of these holes are small and niche. Others could be larger. But whatever the sizes of these holes, they clearly represent incredibly interesting opportunities for entrepreneurship. In our interview with Michael Aginsky, chief technology officer, Gibbons P.C., we learn about some very specific entrepreneurship opportunities for the legal industry. Niche, yes. But a really cool opportunity for an enterprising entrepreneur.

Over the next three weeks, we will publish the first set of these interviews. Entrepreneurs – take a look and let us know if this is useful research for you. If it is, we will work on bringing you more.

This segment is a part in the series : Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing