Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Koolspan CEO Gregg Smith (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: So, one of the major trends that you’re tracking is government spying on corporate networks and you’re trying to provide a secure fortress around that?

Gregg Smith: That’s correct. We try to provide the best fortress we could build around all the communications I described earlier – sharing files, voice communications, and text communications.

Sramana Mitra: What other trends do you track or react to?

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Jeetu Patel, GM of EMC Syncplicity (Part 2)

Jeetu Patel: The second major trend we’re seeing is that as cloud proliferates, security and the role of security within the cloud is getting accentuated at a very different level to what it used to be in the past. This is getting more exacerbated with some of the things that are happening – with the NSA. At a macro level, how do software vendors build cloud applications that large enterprises and companies that are highly regulated can feel comfortable deploying their sensitive data? That tends to be a major area where there’s going to be a huge amount of investment in the next 10 years.

The third major trend that we’re starting to see is the infrastructure availability. Cloud has been a big trend for a while, but we are seeing a major movement in 2014. This is the year of the hybrid cloud where we feel 100% of our customers will be in a hybrid cloud scenario. According to Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), 97% of customers who were early adopters within the public cloud are now looking at hybrid cloud where they want to have sensitive data in the public cloud moved over to the private cloud. That entails deployment flexibility in the cloud. The cloud makes it easier but how does that deployment truly take scale in highly regulated, compliant, security conscious, privacy-driven organizations make the most out of the cloud? That’s where we’re starting to see the model of hybrid cloud really starting to take effect.

Sramana Mitra: Based on what you have said so far, what comes across is that privacy and security concern has come back as a major concern on the cloud. There’s a switch to hybrid cloud even from people who are very comfortable with public cloud. There’s a shift to hybrid cloud at this point in response to that security and privacy concern. Is that accurate?

Jeetu Patel: That’s right. What do people like about the cloud and SaaS? The rapid pace of innovation. What people love is the fact that I can have three-week product release cycles compared to 18 months for on-premise software where people would just wait for the release once every couple of years. That just didn’t create a level of agility in organizations’ consumption of technology. There is a big gap though between the consumption rate of technology and the desire to use the greatest and latest. That’s what they love about the SaaS model. The moment I have a new technology capability that’s made available by the vendor, the users immediately get provisioned. They don’t have that massive delay that most large enterprises have for deploying enterprise software.

What large enterprises don’t like about the cloud is that sometimes highly sensitive and regulated data goes into the public cloud. Major Fortune 100 companies are thinking, “I have thousands of users within my organization and I want to make this an enterprise standard. I want to make sure that everyone has the benefit of having all of these amazing and beautiful applications that they can use on their mobile devices and SaaS platforms.” What we found is an effective operating model that works really well.

What we have done is devise the model so that you can have the application running in the cloud. You can make sure that you, as a customer, have the flexibility of your data either residing in the cloud or on-premise. You decide where your data should be stored depending on the nature of the data because not all contents are created equal. If you have marketing content that you want to share with other people in the public cloud, go ahead and keep it that way. But if you have legal or mergers and acquisitions content that you want to keep on-premise managed by you with your standards and controls, you should be able to do that with any application you deploy.

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Koolspan CEO Gregg Smith (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I guess the question that I’m asking you is somewhat broad. By saying that you deploy a secure mobile communication system, are you able to say that your customers are not being snooped on by the government? Are you able to say that the government cannot penetrate these systems?

Gregg Smith: In the security industry, you need to stay ahead of the hacking environment. You have to continually innovate to ensure that you’re providing the best security possible. While the threat level against the mobile ecosystem is very significant today and it’s no longer the kid in a dark bedroom, you’re looking at organized crime. You’re looking at friendly and foreign governments that are trying to listen in to your communications. From our standpoint, we need to continually innovate to stay ahead of that threat environment and that’s what we try to do every day.

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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 Mobile and Social: Koolspan CEO Gregg Smith (Part 1)

Does government spying freak you out? Read how Koolspan can secure your mobile device.

Sramana Mitra: Gregg, let’s start with an introduction to Koolspan. What is Koolspan? How did Koolspan come about and what are you doing?

Gregg Smith: Koolspan has been around since 2003 and I took over the business in the fourth quarter of 2011. Koolspan is focused on providing high level of security to connected devices such as smartphones, laptops, or tablets. We provide a series of applications to ensure that our enterprise and government customers and even consumers can have secure communication through the connected-device ecosystem in a safe and efficient manner.

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Tidemark CEO Christian Gheorghe (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Again, I’m going to ask you to lift yourself out of Tidemark and take a blank sheet of paper in your head. You are a serial entrepreneur and you have started many companies. You have a good understanding of how to look at your industry and find right spaces or gaps in the market. What are some of these gaps that you have identified where you would point entrepreneurs to look into now? I often see opportunities and I am a serial entrepreneur as well. I can see opportunities that other people could work on. What are some of the other opportunities that are on your radar?

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Building Fat Startups: Nasuni CEO Andres Rodriguez (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: I just have one last set of questions before we retire. You are one of the few entrepreneurs I have interviewed who has roots in Latin America. We see entrepreneurial activity in the technology industry from Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs. Why has Latin America been slow on developing in the technology industry?

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Tidemark CEO Christian Gheorghe (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: That positions the company in terms of competitive landscape. Now I’m going to ask you to extract yourself out of Tidemark and look at the industry as a whole. What’s happening in the cloud and analytics industry? What are the big trends that you are tracking and actually doing something interesting with? Where do you see the opportunities in that space? What are unsolved problems that you are detecting based on your vantage point?

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