Ultimately, everything will be all in the cloud.
This is the fearless forecast of Jim Freeman, IBM’s Asia Pacific VP for hybrid cloud, when exclusively interviewed by Upgrade Magazine.
For Freeman, two things will make this possible.
On the one hand, “regulators are making it possible,” he said, “as they become more comfortable with the cloud.” This is true, for instance, in the case of the banking industry, known in the past as a hard-to-crack market because, even if banks want to shift to the cloud, regulators inhibit them from doing so due to security concerns. “But this has been changing,” Freeman said.
On the other hand, and responding to the aforementioned concern re security, “cloud providers are also advancing,” Freeman said. “Cloud is (constantly) evolving to respond to the needs of industries.”
And so for Freeman, “as businesses are (looking to) moving and as cloud continues to evolve, there’s a closing of that gap. Eventually, cloud will dominate.”
Freeman is, nonetheless, the first to admit that “the fear (about) going to cloud” is still there. This is particularly true to enterprises/big companies, and even more particular to regulated industries. It is, therefore, not surprising – Freeman said – that “startups were actually the first to be in cloud.”
For startups, there are three value propositions with moving to cloud; which is something Freeman said he hopes others will also see.
First, “it’s fast,” he said. “It’s very easy now for a person with idea (to turn that into reality).”
Second, cloud is cheaper particularly when compared with the traditional modes – e.g. if in the past there was need to spend on specific technology for a specific business to properly function, with cloud, this is no longer necessary, thereby cutting costs.
And third, “consumption pricing.” For instance, during Christmas, there may be need to spend more on tech, though what was bought for this season may not be usable for the rest of the year. “But in cloud, you buy only what you need,” Freeman said.
Eventually, Freeman said, everyone will see these benefits; and better yet, make use of cloud because of these.
At least in his observation, APAC – which Freeman said has “strong appetite for service” – has “always been a big growth market for cloud” because the region is “very advanced in the consumption of services.” Add to this the “abundance of startups” in the region (e.g. in India and in Singapore, among others).
But ultimately, Freeman said, “everything will be all in the cloud” as “businesses see the merit of moving into cloud, and providers close the gaps to respond to their needs.”
