Why The Snake Oil IBM?

When I was at the 2014 AWS re:Invent, IBM plastered busses with advertisements that their cloud business had surpassed Amazon’s.  People laughed but in my opinion, IBM has tarnished their esteemed position in industry and eroded trust.  I didn’t buy the IBM cloud biz was bigger but I didn’t have the data.  According to ReadWrite, they do.

IBM The World's Largest Cloud? Not Even Close

http://readwrite.com/2015/01/21/ibm-worlds-largest-cloud-fact-check

What’s wrong with IBM?  Why have they become a “snake oil salesman”?  IBM’s history is viewed by me as a trusted advisor to business.  They were professional and welcomed to the bidding when it came to tech and services.  By doing this, they close doors and raise the big question mark. Why?

-- Chris Claborne

AWS re:Invent 2014

Although I'm getting this out a bit late, here is my annual review of the AWS re:Invent love-in cloud.  I was excited to see what this year’s annual conference in Las Vegas would bring.  I attend the conference for several reasons.  I wanted to see what’s announced at the show, but more importantly, I wanted to find out what the theme and core messaging and trends are.  By attending, you pick up on the theme and cantor of AWS by listening to all of the presenters.  This applies not only the AWS employees at the show, but their customer presenters.  AWS curates their presenters and topics to align to their marketing vector.  

AWS continues to be the leader of the pack by a wide margin, taking their planetary scale to the next level year after year.  What follows are some of my thoughts about AWS as influenced by re:Invent.