KIRKLAND, WA — (Marketwired) — 11/14/13 — High tech industry leaders discussed how the cloud is disrupting the high-tech industry at Revel Consulting-s Industry REVELations Expert Panel on Nov. 7 at Revel-s Headquarters in Kirkland, Wash.
The executive panel included Kathy Barnes (Senior Director of Device Technology for Network and Device Q.A. at T-Mobile), Vibhor Kapoor (Director of Windows Azure Product Marketing at Microsoft), Haris Mohammad (Senior Product Manager of Office Commercial at Microsoft) and Craig Unger (CTO and Co-Founder of Azuqua). The panel was moderated by Vikas Kamran, Revel-s CEO.
Three underlying themes emerged from the panel discussion: Industry maturity, persistent fears around loss of control and exponential growth in interconnectivity. These three trends are shaping the future of the cloud and disrupting the high-tech sector.
“The cloud is just now -coming of age- within the high-tech industry,” said Tim Bowman, Revel-s Manager of Strategy & Insights. “Industry consolidation and escalating price wars are clear signals that the cloud is entering a new stage in its evolution.”
As with any disruptive technology entering this phase, cloud providers will need to shift their focus beyond market competitors and confront a new risk: commoditization. To address this risk, the panelists stressed the growing importance of continually educating customers on the unique value created by a particular product or service.
The first area customers need education is security in the cloud.
“Companies are frightened by the loss of control that comes along with cloud infrastructure and services,” said Bowman. “Companies are fearful it will be harder to protect sensitive company and customer data, more difficult to enforce security and compliance policies, and more challenging to maintain visibility across their technology stack.”
Changing this perception will not be easy. Although surveys show that concerns have recently begun diminishing, loss of control has remained the top barrier for cloud adoption in surveys for years.
Lastly, the cloud, or more specifically the application programming interfaces (API-s) for cloud services, is making the utopian vision of an interconnected future a reality.
“If you think of the Internet as a brain and cloud services as its neurons,” said Bowman, “API-s would be the synapses.”
Similar to how synapses enable neurons to communicate, API-s allow information to flow between previously siloed platforms, hardware and services. Since API-s are easily accessible and often publicly available they lower both the barriers to and speed of innovation for everyone from individual entrepreneurs to multinational enterprises. The ProgrammableWeb began cataloging API-s in 2005. APIs have grown at an explosive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 99.5% to over 10,000 in the past eight years.
As an example of this interconnected future, API-s are already unlocking the full potential of three other transformational technologies: social, mobile and local. The cloud has done so by enabling the brave new world of hyper-personalization that was explored in the last Industry REVELations Panel on the future of commerce.
The provides a forum for Revel associates, clients and forward-thinking executives to discuss market trends, share insights and build meaningful relationships to accelerate micro-innovation.
To express interest in attending future events, please contact .
Revel is a leading business management consulting firm based in Kirkland, Wash. Revel believes client success is achieved through PURE Consulting — reduced barriers between great minds and great opportunities. Revel-s offerings include strategy, operations, technology and customer experience.
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Chad Hall
Revel Consulting
4020 Lk Washington Blvd NE, Suite 210
Kirkland, WA 98033
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