10 Udemy Courses on How to Build a Startup by Piggybacking on a Platform

One of the most exciting trends in the tech industry currently is Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Developer Ecosystems. Entrepreneurs looking for a capital-efficient strategy should seriously consider bootstrapping by piggybacking on these PaaS players.

10 Udemy Courses on How to Build a Product Startup Using Services

This Udemy bundle is for IT and IT-enabled businesses wanting to understand how to get early clients by providing services, as well as existing IT-service companies looking to transition into product businesses.

Why is this set of skills so important?

Cloud Stocks and PaaS: Which SaaS Players Will Win in PaaS

At the end of 2020, I wrote Big Idea 2021: SaaS Companies Will Create 10 Million Jobs with the central thesis that SaaS players would evolve into PaaS to create deeper moats around their core market positions and gain access to the related force multiplier.

To recap on the assumptions:

• IF 1000 SaaS companies open up their platforms as a service, PaaS, as Salesforce.com does, by 2025
• IF each platform lets startups sell through its marketplace, as Salesforce.com does, by 2025
• IF each platform empowers 1000 startups to build on its stack by 2025

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Momchil Michailov, CEO of Sanbolic (Part 1)

The cloud infrastructure space is going through a huge upheaval, as it moves from a largely hardware architecture to a primarily software-based model. This discussion digs into the issues and unearths some areas where there are clear opportunities for new entrepreneurs.

Sramana Mitra: Momchil, let us introduce you to our audience. Tell us about who you are. What are you doing?

Momchil Michailov: Thanks for having us. This is Momchil Michailov and I’m one of the co-founders of Sanbolic Inc. I happen to be in Boston today, but we’re both a North American and a European company. A lot of our development is done in Bulgaria in former Eastern Europe. The rest of the company is here in Boston.

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Featured Videos

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Alastair Mitchell and Andy McLoughlin, Co-Founders of Huddle (Part 1)

If you are wondering what is happening to enterprise collaboration as cloud, mobile, and social trends converge, this interview is an in-depth study of one of the most exciting startups in the field.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with introducing our audience to Huddle. Tell us about you guys. Where do you come from? How did you come together? How did Huddle come about?

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Austin McChord, CEO of Datto (Part 1)

This interview focuses on some of the bottlenecks facing the cloud services industry in penetrating the SME customer base.

Sramana Mitra: Austin, give us a bit of context about you as well as Datto.

Austin McChord: I started Datto right out of college about seven years ago. Our goal was to provide backup and SaaS recovery in a better way and at a lower cost. With that, we pivoted towards the SMB market space. Now, we provide innovative solutions for businesses on the backup and SaaS recovery front. We go beyond simply recovering data and even go as far as avoiding downtime all together. Our company has grown really fast around that premise. We have  270 employees now and appliances on every continent except Antarctica. We have been experiencing doubling growth every year and I’m excited to continue that.

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Jeetu Patel, GM of EMC Syncplicity (Part 1)

For a while, security and privacy concerns around the adoption of cloud computing were eased, which drove huge adoption of public cloud services. In this interview, we explore how the tide is turning and how even early adopters of public cloud are now concerned about security.

Sramana Mitra: Jeetu, let’s introduce our audience to you as well as to EMC Syncplicity.

Jeetu Patel: Thank you for having me here. I am Jeetu Patel, the General Manager of the Syncplicity business unit. Syncplicity is the file sync, share, and collaboration business unit within EMC. We made the acquisition of Syncplicity in May of 2012. Since then, we have had sky rocketing growth of this technology that I will describe to you in a moment. That’s essentially what I do for EMC and Syncplicity.

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Tidemark CEO Christian Gheorghe (Part 1)

This discussion focuses on the evolution of analytics in the cloud era. Christian Gheorghe is a serial entrepreneur and a domain expert in the analytics field.

Sramana Mitra: Christian, introduce our audience to you as well as to Tidemark.

Christian Gheorghe: My name is Christian Gheorghe. I’m the founder and CEO of a company started four years ago that’s called Tidemark.

Sramana Mitra: Where are you located?

Christian Gheorghe: We are located in Redwood Shores in California.

Sramana Mitra: Where are you from? You have an accent, so I’m thinking you’re not from Redwood Shores.

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with Vishnu Bhat, VP and Head of Cloud Services at Infosys (Part 1)

Vishnu Bhat is the vice president and head of cloud services at Infosys. Prior to coming to Infosys, Vishnu started his career in the instrumentation technology industry as an engineer. He taught instrumentation and computer science at the R V College of Engineering in Bangalore. In this interview, he talks about Infosys’ value proposition for enterprise clients in the field of hybrid cloud implementation and gives us insights into trends in the industry and the direction in which it is heading.

Sramana Mitra: Vishnu, let’s start with some background about yourself as well as your practice at Infosys. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with Skip Smith, COO of Confluence (Part 1)

Skip Smith is the chief operating officer of Confluence. Skip has more than 25 years of experience as a technology & operations executive, having studied at the University of Maryland, and he has worked for companies such as Fiserv, JPMorgan Chase and PricewaterhouseCoopers. In this interview he talks about Confluence’s value proposition in the financial services space and introduces entrepreneurs to the problems and their possible solutions in the market.

Sramana Mitra: Skip, let´s start with an introduction of Confluence and of you. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with Tom Dibble, CEO of Aria Systems (Part 1)

Tom Dibble is the CEO of Aria Systems, a company that offers the unique cloud-based “Aria Subscription Billing Platform,” which enables enterprises to manage subscriptions and billing. Tom holds a degree in economics with honors from the Syracuse University and has more than 20 years of enterprise experience, having worked for Goldman Sachs and Company, BEA Systems, and Oracle. In this interview he shares with us the features of the Aria cloud-based platform and discusses examples of use cases for which the platform, including telecom, industry, and open source.

Sramana Mitra: Tom, tell us a bit about what Aria Systems does and what your background is. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with Rick Tinsley, Former CEO of Silver Peak (Part 1)

Rick Tinsley is the former chief executive officer of Silver Peak, a company that focuses on wide area network (WAN) optimization through the virtualization of networks. In this interview Rick talks about Silver Peak’s focus on accelerating data flow of enterprises over large distances. He also gives us insights into the future of the industry and his opinion on what startups should focus on when entering this space, and he discusses opportunities for investors in this space. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with Jason Blessing, CEO of Plex Systems (Part 1)

Jason Blessing is the chief executive officer of Plex Systems, a company offering America’s first and so far only ERP cloud service solution exclusively for manufacturers. Jason graduated from the University of Michigan and he has more than 20 years of experience in the IT industry. In this interview he talks about the unique offering of Plex Systems, and for what purpose mostly small and medium sized companies use it. He also shares insights into the future of the sector and how big data plays a big role in the manufacturing process. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with John Michelsen, CTO of CA Technologies (Part 1)

John Michelsen is the chief technology officer of CA Technologies. John studied at Trinity University and is considered one of the great innovators in business IT, with over 12 patents awarded to him. In this interview John talks about trends in the business IT world and how it has developed over the years. Furthermore, he discusses possibilities and opportunities for entrepreneurs and gives us his views on innovators in this space.

Sramana Mitra: John, let’s give our readers a bit of context about what is happening at CA these days. We had your predecessor, Don Ferguson, on one of our series a couple of years ago. When we started doing these series, there was still ambiguity on where the cloud movement was going and how much adoption there was in enterprises. Today there is no such ambiguity. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Joel Young, Senior VP of Research & Development/Chief Technical Officer of Digi (Part 1)

Joel Young is the senior vice president of research & development and chief technical officer of Digi International, a machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions expert for improving business efficiencies. In this interview Joel talks about the integration of the company’s systems in businesses like Salesforce.com and future trends of “the Internet of Things.” According to Wikipedia, the Internet of Things refers to uniquely identifiable objects (things) and their virtual representations in an Internet-like structure.

Sramana Mitra: Joel, let’s start with context about Digi and also context about your background.

Joel Young: First of all, you probably haven’t thought of Digi as in cloud computing. We have been in business since 1985, and we were always in the device connectivity business. We make things that connect devices – originally, to servers or computers. As the world has evolved, we have evolved with it, so we started putting devices on networks. Our goal, since we were founded, has been to connect devices into an application. The world has evolved from serial ports to networks like Ethernet and local area networks (LANs). >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: A Second Conversation with Mark Settle, CIO of BMC (Part 1)

Mark Settle is the chief information officer of BMC, a Houston-based company that provides software solutions to any size business. Mark has been in this position for four years. Before BMC, he worked as CIO of Corporate Express and Arrow Electronics, and he was executive vice president of the Systems & Processing division of Visa. In this interview he explains new trends in cloud computing, big data management, and how these affect medium-sized and large businesses.

Sramana Mitra: Welcome back to the Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing series, Mark.  We have talked before, so our audience knows you. I think the last time we spoke was some time ago, and we were still trying to figure out how America or the world was looking at cloud computing as a trend. At this point, the trend is sweeping over the IT-infrastructures around the world.  There is no ambiguity – the trend is here to stay and cloud adaption is quite significant. In today’s conversation, I would like to address some specific issues which you have a lot of insight to. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Joseph Beal, Chief Information Security Officer of CCSI (Part 1)

CCSi is a 20-year-old company that serves only the needs of the U.S. government. That’s quite a hefty client for anyone to handle. The U.S. government requires all the same types of support as any other organization. Since the information it handles is much more sensitive that what the average company does, CCSI has its work cut out for it.

Sramana Mitra: Hi, Joseph. Let’s start with your background as well as some context about CCSI. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Chris Gatch, CTO of Cbeyond (Part 1)

It’s nice to have an IT team on staff, but that’s not affordable for all businesses, especially small and medium businesses. That’s where managed services providers like Cbeyond come in. They offer small and medium businesses the same level of services that they would receive with on-staff IT teams at a fraction of the overall cost.

Sramana Mitra: Hi, Chris. Let’s start with some context. What do you do? Where are you going directionally? What is your personal background? >>>