The message from Cloud Conversations, Delhi: Cloud 9 or bust

We can officially declare the cloud as mainstream now. That was the clear message from Cloud Conversations, a special meetup organised by YourStory at New Delhi last Friday. Besides a strong line-up of early-stage and established startup businesses, the meetup was supported by Microsoft, with Takeshi Numoto, Corporate VP for Cloud and Enterprise Marketing, joining Srikanth Karnakota, Microsoft’s India Country Head for Azure and Server Business, for a fireside chat followed by an extended question-and-answer session.

Bringing in a strong perspective for the assembled audience on the government’s plans and intent for startups was Ravinder, former Director, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).

Meant as an informal forum for startups to meet each other, get an expert perspective and meet our team in Delhi, the meetup had startup founders quizzing Takeshi and Srikanth with some tough questions, ranging from Azure’s marketing in India, to special offers for startups, to migration between competing cloud platforms, trusting cloud platforms, what to expect from Azure and the broader cloud system in the coming months and year. It became apparent that the idea of cloud, so aggressively pushed and sold over the past couple of years, was no longer the key issue.

Almost everyone had experienced, was using, or had a strong reference to use the cloud for their business. The issues were clearly more about how to use it effectively, and managing the many related issues around the cloud, from data analytics to predictability on pricing etc. In other words, time to squeeze more value out of the cloud ecosystem.

For Takeshi, who stayed on for extended discussions with a number of attendees, it must have been a great indicator of the potential the market holds for cloud players in India, and the challenges Microsoft’s Azure faces. He also spoke about Microsoft’s big initiative, the Trusted Cloud: “Because we know with all the work that we do in technology means nothing if we can't earn the trust of our customers to basically use that technology in our public cloud offerings."

From YourStory, and especially the team in New Delhi/NCR, a big thank you to everyone for coming over and bringing your energy and enthusiasm to make it an amazing event. We hope you enjoyed yourself, and we promise a lot more such opportunities in Delhi soon.

Watch this space for a recording of the interview with Takeshi Numoto.