In a tough economy, benefits of the cloud 'only magnify'

Drowning in data

How enterprises can successfully mine the reams and reams of data at their disposal will be a big focus this month at re:Invent 2022, AWS’ annual cloud computing conference in Las Vegas.

Many customers are drowning in their data and don't know how to use it to make decisions, AWS CEO Adam Selipsky told Protocol in a recent interview.

• “What we're really trying to do is to look at that end-to-end journey of data and to build really compelling, powerful capabilities and services at each stop in that data journey, and then … knit all that together with strong concepts like governance,” Selipsky said.

• Selipsky is leaning on his four-plus years of experience at Tableau Software to help AWS customers take an end-to-end approach to data.

• “I'm able to bring back a real insider's view, if you will, about where that world is heading — data, analytics, databases, machine learning, and how all those things come together,” Selipsky said.

Global economic uncertainty has resulted in an uptick of AWS customers focused on controlling costs.

• “What we see a lot of is folks just being really focused on optimizing their resources, making sure that they're shutting down resources which they're not consuming,” Selipsky said. “You do see some discretionary projects which are being not canceled, but pushed out.”
• But Selipsky argues it’s a good time to lean into the cloud. “We saw it during the pandemic in early 2020, and we're seeing it again now, which is, the benefits of the cloud only magnify in times of uncertainty,” he said.
• Customers ultimately care most about the value they get from AWS, according to Selipsky.

• Along that line, AWS, in partnership with Deloitte, has been experimenting with new contracting approaches with customers that focus on value creation and tying its fees to whether customers realize predetermined results from the cloud.

AWS is also expected to dive deeper into industry-specific services at re:Invent, targeting customer segments such as automotive, health care, and financial services, as well as cross-industry products such as Amazon Connect, its customer contact center service.

• “We do have more and more customers who want to interact with the cloud at a higher level, if you will, higher up the stack or more on the application layer,” Selipsky said.
• Dilip Kumar, formerly vice president of physical retail and technology at parent company Amazon, moved over to AWS in August and is now vice president of applications.
• “Dilip has come in to really coalesce a lot of teams' capabilities who will be focusing on those horizontal use cases and on industry vertical solutions,” Selipsky said.

Read Protocol’s full report on its interview with Selipsky here and stay tuned for an upcoming Q&A with the AWS CEO in the coming days.

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