Aaron Levie, CEO and co-founder of Box. (c) 2012 Pinar Ozger. pinar@pinarozger.com
While the use of cloud technology to manage big data on the enterprise level now seems hugely popular, this technology benefitted greatly from the recession-era changes in thinking toward the cloud as a whole, said Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box, at GigaOM’s Structure conference.
“It’s sort of the perfect storm for any kind of enterprise software vendor in the cloud.”
Levie noted that before the recession, many businesses were hesitant to adopt cloud technology because of either security or scaling concerns. But as the technology adapted and became more user-friendly — and also became less expensive — businesses became more open to the idea of adopting cloud technology on a larger scale.
“The world around us has changed so dramatically… that when businesses go to set up their technology, the cloud is not the thing they put off in the corner of their organization. They make it central to their strategy.”
Levie predicted that enterprise adoption of cloud technology, combined with the growth of startups focused on business solutions, will lead to massive growth in the space. ”You’re going to get this exponential speed of adoption,” he said.
Levie noted that building companies from the start that are focused on providing dynamic software solutions, with frequently updated products, are inherently better suited to beat the competition.
“Fundamentally, these companies cannot change their DNA and their businesses fast enough to compete with these up and coming players.”
He pointed to his own company, Box, which updates its site on a constant basis, as opposed to other companies that do so quarterly or semi-annually: ”That’s what we think is so disruptive about the cloud,” he said.
Check out the rest of our Structure 2012 coverage, as well as the live stream, here.
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