What signs am I looking for at re:Invent
I attend AWS re:Invent every other year. My observation is that AWS announces something earth shattering once every two years. They followup the next year with proof points of what they announced. In 2014, they had announce AWS Lambda, which is earth shattering for its time. In 2015, they showed adoption along with products that were natural extensions of existing offerings.
I expect this year’s re:Invent to change the game again. They will likely announce something on the same scale as AWS Lambda that will make the whole market go “wow”. I don’t know what its going to be, but if I were to guess, it may be around security space.
So, what would I be looking for this year’s re:Invent? I will be looking for 3 things:
- Commitment to Cloud as the disruptive platform
AWS views Cloud as the platform to build on vs. another platform to target. Contrast it with Microsoft which view Azure as a complimentary platform to on-premises. Effective adoption of AWS meant building apps to use AWS native capabilities. This allowed AWS to deliver huge benefits to their customers.
Will AWS stick to this or will they start dancing to Microsoft and Google tunes? The signs of it will be announcing a new Hybrid solution such as an appliance or AWS in a box.
I would look at such a move as a bad move. It will tell me that AWS is losing their discipline. I think this won’t happen, but I have been wrong before.
2. Pricing
AWS pricing was innovative in 2008. It hasn’t changed much in last 8 years. Its both tiring and expensive now, especially compared to newer Cloud platforms like Google. AWS always had put customers at the forefront of their focus and wants to do right by them. So, I am expecting them to announce massive changes to their pricing structure. Perhaps, drop the reserved instance models and make it a elastic cloud model. I am not looking for simple price cuts, I will be looking for a much simpler pricing model.
AWS not doing this will disappoint me. AWS success has come by disrupting the business model of legacy tech vendors. They now have a risk of similar attack from Google.
3. Innovation at AWS scale
What will be the “Wow, these guys are good, there is no one else like AWS” moment this year?. I will be looking for more than 1 tech market disruption this year and my gut points to security space. Security vendors are laggards hugging their firewalls and appliances for too long. This is a market ripe for disruption by someone like AWS. What would be the other markets?
It is a given for me that AWS will innovate and they won’t bullshit. I expect them to surprise the industry again and make few tech CEOs to lose sleep over the holidays.
Its going to be exciting, especially given how many people offered to buy me drinks during reInvent. I guess there are some advantages to running a parody Twitter account :). Everyone should try it.
