September 15, 2015
Is Ubiquitous Internet Access Gating Public Cloud Adoption?
Article written by Leo Reiter
I recently had a friendly email debate with an experienced executive and investor who I respect tremendously. I argued that I would never pitch a private cloud idea to a venture capitalist knowing what I know now, and that new investment should go into public cloud technologies as a bet on the future. It’s true that private/hybrid cloud is strong today and will continue to be relevant, but the really explosive growth – the transformative growth – is in the public cloud space. As large scale computer systems and networks mature and we spend more time solving problems with them than putting them together, it’s only logical that we simply outsource their operation to others (who specialize in that sort of thing). Obviously private cloud operation is commonly outsourced/hosted as well, but the context of the discussion generally assumed such clouds would be operated on premises.
Inevitably the objection of ubiquitous internet access came up, as did my standard rebuttal of “not long ago we had the same concern about electricity”. I wholeheartedly believe this comparison is valid – Internet connectivity is as key to our progress today as electricity was a century ago – so I decided to do a simple comparison of the evolution of the two megatrends. Specifically, what are the inflection points we can compare? And… if we agree that the (developed) world assumes ubiquitous electricity, how long before the same can be said about reliable Internet connectivity?
If you listen to the hype surrounding OpenStack, it’s nothing less than a panacea offering fast, relatively easy, cost-efficient tools for deploying enterprise apps as cloud services. Some analysts are far less bullish, arguing that building a private cloud with OpenStack is a daunting task. We interviewed OpenStack trailblazers from large enterprises like Walmart, Time Warner Cable, and PayPal.
Amazon’s Pop-up Loft programme has launched in London, targeting start-ups with training and web service support for using its own public cloud. The initiative will be stationed in Fore Street, close to the City of London, until the end of October and will allow developers, engineers and entrepreneurs collaborate on AWS solutions with Amazon’s experts and other cloud computing partners on hand to give advice and direction.
The iPad Pro. There’s been a lot of fallout as to whether this machine is truly enterprise worthy, is or isn’t a laptop replacement, or if the device will resonate with prosumers and enterprises. I maintain that despite the misleading "Pro" moniker, this device is not an enterprise-class device, nor is it well-suited for many kinds of existing vertical market applications, for a number of reasons. But I’m not going to re-hash that in this piece.
“This newest expansion of the IBM Watson Health Cloud makes it an even more robust and flexible platform for the life sciences and healthcare industries and explains its rapid adoption among leading organizations in these fields”, Rhodin added. In January 2014, IBM launched the IBM Watson unit, a business dedicated to developing and commercializing cloud-delivered cognitive computing technologies.
