AWS Start-up Challenge - Who got picked and why?

As I mentioned in my previous blog, those who are promoting the use of "A Cloud" should work on making their eco-systems superior to all others. To be more accurate, they would naturally attempt to improve the perception that their Cloud is better than all the rest.

Amazon chose 7 finalists, including:

• Encoding.com - on-demand video encoding
  
• MedCommons - all of a patient's information in one location
  
• Knewton - online education platform
  
• Pixily - what I used to call "scanmycrap.com," an idea I had in 1998
  
• Sonian - compliant archival
  
• Yieldex - online advertising analytics
  
• Zephyr - enterprise software testing sold as service
  

What is quite frustrating about these selections is that not one of them was impossible before cloud computing, before or without EC2/S3/etc. These are all of the "The Cloud" variation, which says "hey you don't need a heavy PC or I.T. department for this app, we'll host it for you." This has also been called (for at least a decade) multi-tenancy or multi-hosting, because it mixes all clients' data into one big system and lets the software take care of controlling access.

Clearly it is cheaper with Cloud Computing, with AWS in particular, to start these businesses than it would have been a few years ago.

The area of Cloud Computing which is most over-looked, even by Amazon itself, are those business models which were not even conceivable without a cloud. I would call this area "Intra-Cloud Computing." Arista Networks' business model is clearly focused on intra-cloud, on making clouds better, faster, more reliable.

I guess a couple of businesses out there have hybrid intra-/inter-cloud computing solutions, ones that are primarily focused on the general "Hey don't worry, we're in The Cloud" (and happen to be in AWS), but also point out that some things work better or are cheaper if you as their client happen to be in the same cloud. For example, if you live in the AWS cloud, then both you and Encoding.com save money on inter-cloud bandwidth (AWS doesn't charge for intra-cloud bandwidth), and presumably Encoding.com would pass some of that savings on to you their customer. Likewise, Soasta does load testing on your web app, regardless of your web app's location, but if you also happen to be in the AWS cloud, you should save some money.

What I envision over the next few years are software businesses who focus on Intra-Cloud computing, who live and work in A Cloud and are targetting customers in that same cloud. Certainly it's not the case that such a business must live in only one cloud; they can have "cross-cloud" support the same way a browser works on PC and Mac and Linux. Still, just like most client-side software starts on PC, establishes a viable business, then expands to other platforms, it will be a trend for such intra-cloud businesses to get up and running on one cloud before supporting others.

Amazon would be wise to promote these types of businesses - are you listening Jeff Bezos? If Amazon somehow loses their vaunted status as the "PC of Cloud Computing," where truly intra-cloud apps start their life, then they will become the "Mac of Cloud Computing," with support for various capabilities coming later to their cloud instead of earlier. Alternatively, any operator of "A Cloud" should be working on making their eco-system as "complete" as possible, focusing on infrastructure, commodity pricing, exceptional networking, and a wide variety of value-added services that help I.T. projects hit the ground running.