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Cloud: It's a Golden Age

The cloud is commonly known as a cheap space to store data and a splendid place to host workplaces. Although it’s much more than a smart alternative for local hosting, most companies still haven’t embraced the cloud's full possibilities. A recent survey showed that 36 percent of organizations do not have a cloud provider (Big Data survey 2017). At the annual internet association summit, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said we’re on the edge of a new golden age with AI, and the cloud is driving it.

Leading tech companies, like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, make every innovation available for anyone at any time. The cloud is rapidly becoming the place where the most innovative technology is available. That’s why the cloud isn’t just a useful tool for an IT department; it’s the core technology for the entire company. What does this mean for organizations? And more importantly, how does this technology maximize your competitive advantage?

Do what you’re good at

In the past, installing necessary infrastructure and building smart solutions was complicated and time-consuming. But in the cloud, computing and tooling are always available whenever you need them. Whether it’s open source, security or business tools, companies can use the same technology as the tech giants to transform their work processes. The significant advantage of this progress is that organizations can focus their attention on their core business, rather than worrying about infrastructure, scale, security, and updates.

The impossible made possible

Solutions that seemed unreachable for so long are now readily available, thanks to increased scale and technological advancements. And although every organization could build its own teams and invest in developing new technology, they will never obtain the technological advantages of Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. These giants own the resources, knowledge, scale, and speed to remain the market leaders.

For example, the technology behind the speech recognition application on Android-devices is now available as Google Cloud Speech API. Because of the vast amount of data generated by its billions of users worldwide and its access to numerous experts, Google can develop state of art speech recognition. Companies don’t need to develop their own technology; with little investment, any company can access these high tech innovations. With a connection to the cloud, companies can integrate new techniques easily into their processes.

For example, a call center can use the Google Cloud Speech API to transcribe and analyze every incoming and outgoing call. In this way, companies can improve their processes, focus resources on core business, and gain a competitive advantage.

Cloud: It's a golden age, by Bart Verlaat

Let’s get to work!

Before an organization can adopt the cloud, it must answer some important questions to determine the best provider:

  • How important are machine learning solutions?
  • Is the availability of open source solutions necessary?
  • How crucial are the stability and performance of the platform?
  • Do you need a single supplier or does a multi-player hybrid solution work better for your company?

A proper answer needs specialist know-how. If your business lacks this, consider hiring outside parties to help you. They will assess the feasibility of your idea and support the launch of new initiatives. In this way, you can maximize your gains in this new golden age.

It's a fantastic and fast-moving world where remarkable technological developments in the cloud can influence new business opportunities. To remain one (or more) steps ahead of your competition, you must embrace the cloud as your innovation platform.

This article is part of the Urgent Future report Cloud - It's a Golden Age.

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