“The cloud computing trend is boosting tech stocks like Terremark Worldwide, which is widely outperforming the Nasdaq this year. Manuel Medina, CEO of Terremark, talks to the fast money crew.”
Manny Medina Talks Cloud Computing for Business and Government on CNBC
Speaking on CNBC’s Fast Money program, Terremark Worldwide chairman and CEO Manny Medina explains the reasons behind the federal government’s recent push to the cloud. Melissa, from the Fast Money crew, begins by explaining: “The government is at the forefront of pushing to cloud computing” and “switching IT services over to cloud computing platforms.” She then asks Mr. Medina “How forceful the U.S. government is in pushing towards cloud computing.”
“Extremely forceful,” says Mr. Medina. “Starting next year, government agencies must justify why they aren’t using the cloud.” That’s quite a push, but the investment will no doubt pay off quickly as the government begins to see huge savings by outsourcing their IT and infrastructure to third-party companies. Instead of relying on local servers and a team of IT people working on-site at each individual agency, the government is leveraging the speed and versatility of the cloud to replace the antiquated client/server model. Third-party companies that focus specifically on delivering cloud computing services are far better equipped to manage the massive datasets required by these large operations.
In fact, the federal government’s official online portal, usa.gov, is hosted by Terremark, as are many other federal sites, including data.gov, which is used to disseminate public datasets in an effort to “democratize public sector data and drive innovation.”
It’s only fitting that the government would turn to Terremark for help driving innovation. Terremark has been pushing the idea for years, though cloud computing has only recently come into the scope of public awareness.
“The Cloud is not up there…”
While 20% of Terrmark’s revenue comes from the government, SaaS providers and healthcare companies now account for a sizable amount of the company’s business, with more industries hopping on board each year. Despite this seemingly universal push towards the cloud, many have been skeptical as to what it may mean for security when everyone’s data is hosted in remote data centers. To that, Mr. Medina says, “There is no question that the number one concern about the cloud today is security. It’s all just a matter of education.”
“The cloud is not up there,” says Mr. Medina, referring to the physical infrastructure that makes up the “diverse ecosystem of networks” that constitutes cloud computing today. The vast expanse of data that we refer to as “the cloud” is really just a tightly knit network of data centers and server farms that exist in the real world, in real buildings that you can physically see and touch. We call it “the cloud” in the abstract sense, but the data exists in real-world locations, and even though application providers like ourselves use the cloud to push software-as-a-service to our clients, we are real people in the real world.
Manny Medina and Terrmark understand this, and that’s why we love Terremark. The Fast Money crew seems to understand it as well, noting about Terrmark “People like you because you’re very transparent when it comes to where your data centers are.” It’s this kind of transparency that goes along way towards showing people that the cloud is actually safer than local servers, in addition to being far more cost-effective and easier to implement.
Manny Medina and Terrmark understand this, and that’s why we love Terremark. The Fast Money crew seems to understand it as well, noting about Terrmark “People like you because you’re very transparent when it comes to where your data centers are.” It’s this kind of transparency that goes along way towards showing people that the cloud is actually safer than local servers, in addition to being far more cost-effective and easier to implement.
What do you think?
Make sure to watch the entire video, and then give us your thoughts about Terremark and the state of cloud computing in the comments section below!
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