Cloud represents 'the next cycle in computing' and successful start-ups prove it, says Google

Barak Regev also tells Bloomberg Enterprise Technology Summit that mobile is 'the gasoline' of cloud

Cloud forms the most important part of the ‘next cycle of computing' and it's being driven by the rise of mobile devices and user demand to access applications from anywhere, at any time.

That's according to Barak Regev, head of EMEA cloud platform at Google, who made the comments at Bloomberg Enterprise Technology Summit as part of a panel discussion on cloud as a commodity, alongside Rackspace president Taylor Rhodes and VMware CIO Tony Scott.

Regev was asked what it was going to take for the enterprise to fully adopt cloud technology. He replied that cloud represents "the next cycle in computing", something he argued becomes apparent when you observe how often it's being deployed by developers and start-ups.

"If you look at the way cloud has been adopted, developers have been using it for years, start-ups have been using it and benefiting from it for years. We've been seeing disruption in the market throughout the years, we've seen companies like Uber - or Hailo in the UK - come through," said Regev. "None of these guys operates with anything else but cloud infrastructure."

Regev argued that it's the success of these cloud-based start-ups which is encouraging more and more businesses to seriously examine how they could benefit from outsourcing their infrastructure.

"Education is coming from the users of these companies... [encouraging] enterprise to look at how they can create new models within their space and be destructive in their very traditional markets. Education is actually happening by the acceleration of adoption," he said.

Regev believes the boom in mobile devices has been the catalyst for the widespread deployment of cloud computing technology.

"I think that the gasoline, the petrol, for cloud has been mobile - what you're holding in your hand, what I have in my pocket, I think that's creating massive pressure on our core infrastructure and our traditional data centres," he said.

"That's pushing enterprises to look more at how they build their applications, their core infrastructure," Regev continued, before pointing out that even Google has to cater for devices that aren't in its own Android ecosystem.

"If they're available from any device, any platform, not necessarily just Android - iPhone or whatever your device - how do you actually serve multiple types of users?"

The simplest way of doing that, Regev argued, is through the deployment of cloud technology.

"Because we all see the trend of bring your own device and bring your own software just becoming more complicated and that's what cloud is here to solve; it's actually doing things easier, faster and the cost of failure is fairly low," he said.

However, not everyone is so positive about the impact of cloud computing. Indeed, there are those who've argued that cloud computing - and other new technology - could lead to the destruction of humanity.