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The day Amazon’s cloud changed everything

Welcome to Protocol | Enterprise, your comprehensive roundup of everything you need to know about the week in cloud and enterprise software. This Monday: the cloud service that started it all, why robotic process automation is having a moment, and more fallout from the Exchange attack.
Only in a handful of moments this century could you see the very direction of the tech industry change, and the launch of Amazon S3 on March 14, 2006, makes that list.
It was the birth of a service, an enormously profitable company within a company, and a seismic shift in the economics of doing business on the internet. Cheap, always available and seemingly unlimited data storage unleashed a torrent of innovation not only in the enterprise, but in the mobile applications that would start to take over the world just a few years later after the launch of the iPhone.
Services like S3 unlocked a frenzy of entrepreneurial activity. Cloud computing was a key factor in the exploding app economy.
Amazon now has neighbors in the cloud. Jeff Bezos has frequently marveled at how long AWS had the market practically to itself. But Microsoft, IBM and others eventually took notice.
The past is prologue. In general, people in technology don't spend a lot of time looking at the past, preferring to focus on inventing the future. Still, anniversaries have meaning: They let us appreciate just how much the world has (or hasn't) changed.
Change is coming. AWS has had one leader, Andy Jassy, for its entire history.
— Tom Krazit
Could Your Business Use 1PB of Free Cloud Storage?
Register now and attend Seagate Datasphere 2021 Virtual Event for a chance to win a massive 1PB of Seagate Lyve Cloud storage for your business.
We've got an incredible lineup of industry experts who will discuss the most formidable challenges regarding enterprise data storage.
The robots are coming: Robotic process automation saw a surge in usage during the pandemic. Now, Google Cloud is teaming up with Automation Anywhere to develop a suite of products targeted at specific industries like financial services that will enable users to deploy RPA right out of the box. Google Cloud is the laggard in this space: Last year, Microsoft purchased RPA provider Softomotive and AWS has a partnership with UiPath that's similar to Google Cloud's new initiative.
AI research race: It's not surprising that tech giants like Facebook and Google dominate AI research. But startups are now trying to challenge that dominance. The goal is to go deeper, not broader, focusing on specific topics like natural language processing. Asapp is one of those. A burgeoning player in the battle to digitize the call center, it's been able to pull talent from some impressive places and notch a few major wins since launching in 2014.
The dream of enterprise XR: Companies have been slowly testing out how mixed reality can be used within their own operations. Protocol's Kevin McAllister asked our Braintrust to weigh in on which industries could see the biggest impact from the technology.
March 16: SXSW kicks off. The tech track for this year has loads of great sessions exploring issues like diversity in the field and responsible AI. One standout is Amazon CTO Werner Vogels interviewing Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson. Also Tuesday: Coupa reports earnings (see our profile of CEO Rob Bernshteyn).
March 17: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds a hearing on how the U.S. can remain competitive with China. It comes after a recent report authored by tech industry leaders said the U.S. is falling way behind in the AI arms race.
Could Your Business Use 1PB of Free Cloud Storage?
Register now and attend Seagate Datasphere 2021 Virtual Event for a chance to win a massive 1PB of Seagate Lyve Cloud storage for your business.
We've got an incredible lineup of industry experts who will discuss the most formidable challenges regarding enterprise data storage.
Thanks for reading — see you Thursday.
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