Think Tank on Cloud Computing – A NWEN Event

The Northwest Entrepreneur’s Network hosted a think tank on cloud computing at Seattle University on April 28th, 2009.  At this event there were 4 panel speakers touted as business innovators in cloud computing and I must say, they were great choices for the event.

The following bios were sourced from NWEN…

http://www.nwen.org/index.php?option=com_events&Itemid=15&id=193

Ashutosh Tiwary is Founder and CEO of Doyenz which is focused on building the most comprehensive Automated Virtual IT platform for the SMB.

Praerit Garg Praerit is the President & Co-founder of Symform, Inc. which is launching a low cost, enterprise class Cooperative Storage Cloud service that enables IT service providers to efficiently utilize existing capacity and extend onsite backup solutions with a secure, reliable, and automated disaster recovery offering that organizations of all sizes can afford.

Prashant Ketkar is the Director of Product and Field Marketing for Windows Azure. Prior to his current role, Prashant led the Enterprise Partner Strategy team in the Information Worker (Office) team. He has over 10 years of industry experience in technology product marketing, branding and product strategy.

Jeff Lawson is the CEO of Twilio which provides a telephony infrastructure web service “in the cloud”, enabling web programmers to integrate real-time phone calls into their applications. Twilio’s simple, powerful API and Pay-As-You-Go pricing model minimizes the learning curve and means customers pay for capacity only when they need it. Headquartered San Francisco the company has received investments from Founder’s Fund and software industry luminary Mitch Kapor.

My Experience at the Event:

This was my first NWEN event and it was well worth the time invested.  Beforehand I was able to meet several brand new entrepreneurs and many of what I lovingly refer to as chronic entrepreneurs.  I also met an attorney who specializes in the various legal tedium surrounding start-ups and a few folks looking to solicit clients for their web design/SEO “guru” skills…   Every crowd has them.

The content of the event focused mainly on the ins and outs of taking your app to the web, as well as a large bit of time devoted to the former Microsofties taking jabs at the current Microsoftee, Prashant Ketkar.  I was really hoping the conversation would tend more towards using software as a service for a few reasons.  1) Culture Sculptor is operated solely on web based programs and I feel there are a lot of benefits for new entrepreneurs to start off in the clouds.  To learn more read my ongoing series about How to Create an Office in the Clouds.  2)  I was hoping for some really great content for said blog series.  3) I’m not creating apps that will then be hosted on the cloud.

That being said it was still a great exchange of ideas, I learned a lot, and I believe the general consensus was that cloud computing is definitely going to pervade they way we interact with computers in the future.  There was plenty of discussion about the dangers of a solely web-based environment, and much uncertainty as to how the cloud will continue to grow and be managed.  The panel tended to agree that Amazon’s EC2 has a significant head start on the market and the most robust services available for those looking to take their app to the cloud.  Microsoft’s Azure however is already in beta testing phase and is developing, in M$ juggernaut fashion, a much larger scope of services and a new bar for inter-compatibility among platforms, something relatively new for their culture.

All in all, I believe NWEN created and executed a great event and I look forward to joining them in the future.

Talk to you soon.