Living in the Cloud in Seattle
Picture Credit: PSBJ Big Data 2014
The city of Seattle is often synonymous with clouds. And yes, we have our fair share of dreary cloudy days. But did you know that Seattle is also home to a different type of booming cloud?
We’re not talking weather here, but rather cloud computing. The sector is only ten years old and growing at an astounding pace. As I write this, there are 1.7 million unfilled jobs in cloud computing, and Amazon projects there will be up to 7 million new jobs in cloud businesses within three years! Seattle’s own Amazon Web Services and dozens of other innovative companies in this region are pioneering cloud computing, which in turn is transforming. A few years ago, I visited the president of a large VC fund in this region, and asked him where the fund is investing. He replied that are just focused in two areas – cloud computing and Big Data. He added that the leading companies in the world in both areas are based right here in Seattle: Amazon and Microsoft.
Our campus recently hosted a cloud computing conference, where Joel Minnick of Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Enterprise Adoption unit gave the keynote remarks. He was explaining why the move to the cloud is gathering momentum so quickly. A basic reason is the prospect of any business allocating 30% of its customer resources to its customers and the mission of the business, instead of using that money to keep the traditional back office servers and IT running. Cloud architecture and development changes features of traditional companies in additional ways, even though the transformation to a cloud-based company is a journey. Mr. Minnick walked through how the roles of any company CEO, CFO, CMO and CRO can benefit and deliver greater value to their customers.
The move to the cloud is gaining momentum and creating competitive advantage for those who have made the transition. As one CEO, Charles Phillips, put it, “Friends don’t let friends build data centers (anymore)”. This growth is creating new job categories in many areas, and imposes new training needs for institutions like Northeastern, the University of Washington, and others who have strong computer science programs. We are bringing together industry leaders in coming months to understand the skills they will want in their employees as we move into this new world of The Cloud.
Seattle and Washington State are well positioned in coming months and years to take steps to keep this state the global hub for both cloud computing and big data. We already enjoy a highly skilled workforce and globally recognized industry leaders. At present we have over 14,000 ICT companies with a market value of over $1 trillion. Our region’s penchant for entrepreneurship and innovation make it a perfect hub for R&D. I hope to join civic, industry and governmental leaders in coming weeks in trying to make this vision for our region and state a reality. Let’s make Seattle Cloud City!
Dean Washburn