So take a look at my musings on the event here: (if the video doesn’t show up, check here)
No time to watch – here is the 1-2 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):
Want to read on?
Here you go: Always tough to pick the takeaways – but here are my Top 3:
AWS focuses on best practices – It was clear that AWS thinks that the US view on best practices adoption due to cloud, was what the German IT audience wanted to hear about. Both in examples from Continental (surprise –another automotive customer!) and AWS itself (with Stephen Orban) talked at length about the changes that need to happen in order to make IT more agile, more in tune with the challenges of digital transformation. Nothing out of the ordinary, the audience took notes diligently.
Security remains focus – AWS has done a very good job since its early days to address and overcome the security concerns of enterprises in regards of moving to the public cloud. No exception in Frankfurt – with a dedicated security track. From conversation with attendees, the security concern has largely been addressed in Germany, at least for the enterprises actively working on cloud deployments. As already heard a year ago at AWS Summit in Berlin, the German region in Frankfurt has eliminated almost all concerns around data residency and statutory concerns.
Adoption remains a constant challenge – Despite the interest and good reception, AWS (like other public cloud vendors) in Germany struggles with adoption. While it was ok to have e.g. only pilots and early phases of projects in Berlin in 2015 (e.g. Audi), not having a German enterprises presenting in the keynote about their live experience with AWS (ideally in Germany) - was certainly a surprise. The ‘live’ customer aspect in the keynote came from UK based autonomous driving startup Here. Definitively a great showcase for cloud in general and AWS in specific – but nothing to relate to for the average attending enterprise. And while Continental qualifies in these regards, the presentation was around a playful uptake of AWS services with a ‘Hau Den Lukas’ implementation. Great demo, but exactly that – a demo. To be fair, more customer presentations and example were presented in the separate track session, but e.g. a major pharmaceutical company being live in the US with AWS Workspaces, certainly qualifies as a live customer, but in the US and not in Germany.
AWS focuses on best practices – It was clear that AWS thinks that the US view on best practices adoption due to cloud, was what the German IT audience wanted to hear about. Both in examples from Continental (surprise –another automotive customer!) and AWS itself (with Stephen Orban) talked at length about the changes that need to happen in order to make IT more agile, more in tune with the challenges of digital transformation. Nothing out of the ordinary, the audience took notes diligently.
Security remains focus – AWS has done a very good job since its early days to address and overcome the security concerns of enterprises in regards of moving to the public cloud. No exception in Frankfurt – with a dedicated security track. From conversation with attendees, the security concern has largely been addressed in Germany, at least for the enterprises actively working on cloud deployments. As already heard a year ago at AWS Summit in Berlin, the German region in Frankfurt has eliminated almost all concerns around data residency and statutory concerns.
Adoption remains a constant challenge – Despite the interest and good reception, AWS (like other public cloud vendors) in Germany struggles with adoption. While it was ok to have e.g. only pilots and early phases of projects in Berlin in 2015 (e.g. Audi), not having a German enterprises presenting in the keynote about their live experience with AWS (ideally in Germany) - was certainly a surprise. The ‘live’ customer aspect in the keynote came from UK based autonomous driving startup Here. Definitively a great showcase for cloud in general and AWS in specific – but nothing to relate to for the average attending enterprise. And while Continental qualifies in these regards, the presentation was around a playful uptake of AWS services with a ‘Hau Den Lukas’ implementation. Great demo, but exactly that – a demo. To be fair, more customer presentations and example were presented in the separate track session, but e.g. a major pharmaceutical company being live in the US with AWS Workspaces, certainly qualifies as a live customer, but in the US and not in Germany.
MyPOV
A good event for AWS, the vendor has definitively the attention and interest of the German IT audience. I am sure AWS has good reasons for focusing more on IT transformation than showcases, but the ‘doer’ audience in Frankfurt definitively wanted to learn more on the showcase side. From my two dozen plus random attendee conversations, all were upbeat, interested but also wanted to learn more what other enterprises are doing with AWS. Even North American enterprise showcases would have been welcomed.Having the Summit in walking distance from all major banks, next to the Frankfurt financial center, I would not have been surprised to see a more Finance / Banking focus at the event, but if the topic was addressed, I missed it. As in general, we saw again the lack of AWS ‘packaging’, basically bundling many of their services to something enterprises are demanding (e.g. an AWS IoT Platform). Enterprises will then know services work together for a specific purpose, enable e. g. a specific business goal and most importantly, all enterprises use, experience (and become references!) for that ‘bundle’ (others may call it product).
Overall a good reminder on how different the adoption stages of public cloud are between North America and Europe, in this case Germany. On the bright side for the cloud, definitively a change from ‘we have to do it (for IoT)’ (from AWS Summit in Berlin 2015) to ‘what are the best use cases’ (Frankfurt, June 2016), so a good progression in the ‘mental costume’ of European / German cloud evaluation / adoption. For European / German enterprises in the immediate adoption situation / decision, the recommendation is cearly to attend the North American events, most prominently reInvent in Las Vega this fall.
Stay tuned for more.
Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (if it doesn’t show up – check here).
More on AWS:
Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (if it doesn’t show up – check here).
More on AWS:
- News Analysis - Amazon Web Services Cloud now speaks… Hindi - Indian AWS Data Centers available - read here
- News Analysis - Salesforce selects AWS as preferred Public Cloud Infrastructure Provider - Good move - read here
- Event Report - AWS re-Invent - AWS lobbies for the enterprise - DB and IoT are the cheese - read here
- First Take - AWS reInvent Wednesday Keynote - Good start & AWS is going for the enterprise read here
- Event Preview - AWS re-Invent 2015 - watch / read here
- Event Report - AWS Summit Berlin - AWS spricht Deutsch - but when will the Germans speak cloud? Read here
- News Analysis - AWS learns Hindi - Amazon Web Services announces 2016 India Expansion - read here
- Event Report - AWS Summit San Francisco - AWS pushes the platform with Analytics and Storage [From the Fences] read here
- Event Report - AWS re:invent - AWS becomes more about PaaS on inhouse IP - read here
- AWS gives infrastructure insights - and it is very passionate about it - read here
- News Analysis - AWS spricht Deutsch - the cloud wars reach Germany - read here
- Market Move - Infor runs CloudSuite on AWS - Inflection Point or hot air balloon? Read here
- Event Report - AWS Summit in SFO - AWS keeps doing what has been working in the last 8 years - read here
- AWS moves the yardstick - Day 2 reinvent takeaways - read here.
- AWS powers on, into new markets - Day 1 reinvent takeaways - read here.
- The Cloud is growing up - three signs in the News - read here.
- Amazon AWS powers on - read here.
