Road Notes – Amazon re:Invent Conference in Las Vegas, Nov. 11-14, 2013

The re:Invent conference, Amazon’s annual gathering of its cloud computing customers, prospects, and partners, has become the barometer of industry adoption of cloud computing. It’s become a massive event, hosted in Amazon’s distinct style, and underscores Amazon’s lead in the nascent, but growing market for cloud-based IT services.  Organizations of all sizes are looking at Amazon, and practical hurdles limit the path of adoption.  The success of the event also highlights the lack of a clear #2 player in the market.  This is a real issue for competitors, because there is ample room for Amazon to improve its messaging and sales pitch.

This is the opening keynote delivered by Igor Stenmark, Managing Director of MGI Research at the 2013 MGI Research Cloud Innovators Summit on March 5, 2013 at the Core Club in New York City . Discusses market sizing for IaaS, valuation trends, key drivers for growth, winners and losers.

Michael Crandell, CEO and Founder of RightScale Speaks at the 2013 MGI Research Cloud Innovators Summit about cloud management tools market, competitive landscape and positioning of RightScale within that market. Recorded on March 5th 2013 at the Core Club in New York, NY.

As of April 9th 2013 MGI Research added Interxion Holding B.V. - a Dutch-based provider of data center and interconnect services to MGI Cloud 30 Index - an index of 30 cloud equities.

Interxion, which trades on the NYSE under the INXN symbol, replaces Saba Software and holds about a 3% target weight in MGICloud30. Other key components of the MGI Cloud30 Index include companies such as Equinix, Dupont Fabros Technology, Digital Realty Trust, Salesforce.com, Rackspace and ServiceNow, among others. For additional information on the index and its components see a recent research note: MGI Cloud 30 Index - Is the Cloud Trend Intact?

Relevant Research:

Rackspace Revenue Miss: An 800-to-1 Punishment

On March 5th in New York City we are hosting the 2013 MGI Research Cloud Innovators Summit. This will be a half-day, invitation-only conference focused on business and technology innovation in Cloud Infrastructure and Tools. This is an exclusive opportunity to meet CEOs of up and coming cloud providers, network with cloud industry executives, investors and analysts. MGI will also present our 2013 Cloud Computing Scenario and discuss the MGI Cloud30 Index.

Earlier in September we had an in-depth conversation with Chris Drake, CEO of Firehost - an emerging supplier of secure cloud computing infrastructure services. In this 20 Questions session, Chris shared his views and practical experiences with bringing to market a secure cloud offering.

Related Recent Reports and Comments:

Video Replay of the "Battle of PaaS Evangelists July 25 2012"

Is Security a Barrier to Cloud Adoption?

MGI Research - Battle of PaaS Evangelists July 25 2012 from MGI Research on Vimeo.

Recording of the "Battle of PaaS Evangelists" on July 25 2012 with Andrew Dailey and Igor Stenmark of MGI Research, Sacha Labourey, CEO of CloudBees and Sinclair Schuller, CEO of Apprenda

On July 25th 2012 MGI is hosting a webinar on Platform as a Service (PaaS) trends.

Platform as a Service or PaaS is being touted as the express elevator to faster development, integration and deployment of Cloud applications. In the past, integration middleware was largely the domain of large companies as it required a significant upfront investment. Integration costs often added upwards of 60% of the total cost of a business application. PaaS promises to transform the economics of cloud application integration and delivery. Is PaaS a fundamentally new, must-have technology with a clear ROI or is it just a repackaging of old concepts retro-fitted for the cloud?

The overall tenor of Oracle management comments post its latest earnings announcement was very upbeat. While multiple headwinds persists, i.e. EU, stronger US dollar, launch of multiple new product initiatives such as Public Cloud, - the stock looks ready to try to attempt a break to the other side of the downward trend line.

In several research reports over the past year we have focused on the role that security plays in the rate of cloud adoption. On a couple of occasions we pointed out the functional gaps that exist in many typical cloud offerings. It has also been our point of view that any actual or perceived shortcomings in security are not likely to meaningfully hold back the current adoption trajectory for the cloud. The question is can this adoption trajectory change significantly if the actual and perceived level of trust for the cloud is elevated by additional security features and/or new standalone and more secure offerings? In our view any improvement to cloud security capabilities, creation of security standards and improved transparency will catalyze cloud adoption amongst many current skeptics.

New Research Report - "Cloud Computing: A Definition" http://bit.ly/gTha6B
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