Ben is a serial entrepreneur who loves playing in the intersection of business and technology. Ben is currently the Chief Strategy Officer of Midokura, which brings disruptive cloud networking technology to the world. His last role was as the GM of Emerging Technologies at DreamHost, where he ran the cloud business unit. Before that, Ben ran a cloud-focused managed services company.
During HostingCon, we were able to catch up with Ben to see what his thoughts are of the hosting and cloud space. First question, what is the cloud?
"This is how you explain it (the cloud) to your mom: Infrastructure-as-a-service is akin to going to Home Depot to build your furniture. Platform-as-a-service is like going to to Ikea. Software as a service is much more of a polished service, like going to Crate and Barrel or a furniture store, get it done and over with," said Ben, describing the services that make up the cloud.
"Every hosting provider has a cloud solution," said Ben. "Unfortunately, all the marketing has gotten in the way and the word ‘cloud' doesn't mean anything anymore."
There are a lot of exciting trends that Ben is seeing in cloud hosting, consumer products turning enterprise, and opportunities for major growth.
"I think there's going to be a lot more cloudy hosting providers coming out over time, over the next few years. That's pretty interesting I think," said Ben.
Ben also thinks there will be huge growth for enterprise offerings and startups who will fill a need not currently being met in the cloud space. "There's a lot of space available for people to blow-up," said Ben.
Hear the rest of Ben's predictions in the full interview clip above.
At HostingCon 2012, CloudFlare co-founder Michelle Zatlyn sat down with 28 leading experts in the hosting industry. Their conversations were captured live and offer insight into the latest trends and news in hosting.